SHANGHAI, China —
China’s top security body
called for a “crackdown” against “hostile forces” on Tuesday, after a weekend
of protests in major cities opposing COVID lockdowns and demanding greater
political freedoms.
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The stark warning came after security services were
out in force across China following demonstrations not seen in decades, as
anger over unrelenting lockdowns fuelled deep-rooted frustration with the
political system.
A deadly fire last week in Urumqi, the capital of
the northwestern region of Xinjiang, was the catalyst for the outrage, with
protesters taking to the streets in cities around China.
The demonstrators said COVID-19 restrictions were to
blame for hampering rescue efforts in Urumqi, claims the government swiftly
denied.
China is the world’s last major economy still wedded
to a zero-COVID policy, which compels local governments to impose snap
lockdowns and quarantine orders, and limit freedom of movement in response to
minor outbreaks.
Anger over the lockdowns has widened to calls for
political change, with protesters holding up blank sheets of paper to symbolise
the pervasive censorship to which the world’s most populous country is
subjected.
On Tuesday, the ruling Communist Party’s Central
Political and
Legal Affairs Commission called for a “crackdown” on what it
described as “hostile forces” — a possible warning to the protesters, which the
readout published in state news agency Xinhua did not mention directly.
The body — which oversees all domestic law enforcement in China — also agreed at
its meeting that it was time to “crack down on illegal criminal acts that
disrupt social order” as well as “safeguard overall social stability.”
The warning came after a heavy police presence
across cities on Monday and Tuesday appeared to have quelled protests for the
time being.
In another sign of the government’s zero-tolerance
of dissent, people who had attended weekend rallies in the Chinese capital told
AFP on Monday they had received phone calls from law enforcement officers
demanding information about their movements.
‘Liberty or death’
On Tuesday hundreds of
officers appeared to have been drawn back from the streets of a rain-drenched
Shanghai, where weekend protests had seen bold calls for the resignation of
President Xi Jinping, an AFP reporter said.
In Beijing, AFP reporters saw a few marked and
unmarked police vehicles but no sign of protesters at an intersection near the
Asian Games Village, where a demonstration had been planned for Tuesday night.
Freezing temperatures of -9°C likely also kept protesters away.
Some rallies did go ahead elsewhere on Monday and
Tuesday, however.
At Hong Kong’s oldest university, over a dozen
people led the crowd Tuesday in chanting slogans such as “give me liberty or
give me death”.
“We are not foreign forces, we are Chinese citizens.
China should have different voices,” one woman shouted, while another held a
placard mourning victims of the Urumqi fire.
In Hangzhou, just over 170km southwest of Shanghai,
there was heavy security and sporadic protests in the city’s downtown on Monday
night.
“The atmosphere was disorderly. There were few
people and we were separated. There were lots of police, it was chaos,” she
said.
China’s strict control of information and continued
travel curbs have made verifying protester numbers across the vast country
challenging.
But the widespread rallies seen over the weekend are
exceptionally rare in China, with authorities harshly clamping down on all
opposition to the central government.
Solidarity protests have meanwhile mushroomed around
the world.
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