Why are protests on the rise in China?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Any kind of public dissent in China is both dangerous and difficult to document. But that hasn’t prevented a dramatic increase in the number of protests taking place across the country.
Police and other security forces act swiftly to shut them down – as a Sky News team learned first-hand when they were forced into cars and driven away whilst trying to film a factory strike in Shenzhen.
What is the significance of the protests in China and could events in Iran be making Beijing nervous?
Niall is joined by Sky’s Asia correspondent Helen-Ann Smith.
Producer: Natalie Ktena
Editor: Mike Bovill
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sky News, the full story first. |
| 0:09.8 | Coming up, there's been a dramatic rise in protests across China, ordinary people taking extraordinary risk to be heard. |
| 0:17.3 | Our Asia correspondent, Helen Ann Smith, has witnessed it it firsthand and she joins us next. |
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| 1:29.9 | When you think of China, you don't tend to think of dissent, such as the control that the Chinese Communist Party or CCP has on its nation. |
| 1:34.0 | But recently, something shifted. |
| 1:35.8 | Protests that were once rare are now happening with increasing regularity. |
| 1:40.0 | Please, hey, please. |
| 1:41.4 | Hey, please, stop, stop. |
| 1:42.4 | Stop, stop. |
... |
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