How a forgotten 110-day lockdown sparked China’s COVID protests
On Saturday, Chinese officials announced that one of the country’s longest lockdowns would finally end amid nationwide protests against Beijing’s strict COVID-zero policy aimed at eliminating every case of the virus.
Xinjiang residents have been in lockdown for over three months. But officials abruptly said the detention would end “gradually” after a deadly apartment fire in the provincial capital, Ürümqi, sparked protests in Xinjiang and elsewhere in China, in the widest expression of public frustration at the government’s COVID-zero stance since the pandemic started.
The lockdown in Xinjiang, a vast region of northwest China only slightly smaller than the US state of Alaska, has received far less attention than the two-month lockdown earlier this year in Shanghai, the country’s leading financial hub. Still, Xinjiang’s lockdown shows how long some people in China — particularly outside central centers like Beijing and Shanghai — have had to live with COVID-zero measures and how COVID controls are inspiring a sense of solidarity across the country of 1.4 billion people , even if it is specific measures vary from place to place.
Months of lockdown
Xinjiang residents have been living under some sort of curfew for nearly four months. Urumqi, the region’s capital, announced lockdown measures on Aug. 10 after a small spike in cases.
That decision sparked weeks of lockdowns as officials repeatedly extended the deadline by which the city could eventually come out of quarantine. In early October, officials barred Xinjiang residents from leaving the region and canceled flights and trains out of the area.
Xinjiang officials admitted they could not control the outbreak, blaming the new BA.5.2 variant and overly lax control measures. The provincial vice chairman even suggested to state media that regular COVID testing may have spread the disease due to poor protocols by testing staff.
During the lockdown, Xinjiang residents took to social media to complain about the lack of food and other necessities, the authorities said South China tomorrow post. A series of social media videos posted by residents in Ili Kazakh, a region bordering Kazakhstan, showed hungry children and long lines outside medical centers.
Despite heavy censorship by Chinese authorities, social media users across the country were outraged by the videos released in early September South China tomorrow post reported at the time. Users also contrasted the videos with the official narrative, which touted low case numbers and made no mention of a lockdown. Xinjiang officials soon admitted that residents were struggling to access medical care and promised to improve the situation.
But Xinjiang’s lockdown faded from China’s social media talks in the weeks that followed, aided by travel bans and censorship. “Most people have already forgotten Xinjiang,” said a university student in Yining, a city in Ili Kazakhstan Bloomberg on the 100th day of lockdown.
A fire in Urumqi
But a deadly apartment fire has thrown Xinjiang’s long COVID lockdown back into the mainstream.
Chinese social media users claimed that COVID measures were hampering firefighters responding to the blaze, pointing to videos of fire trucks being forced to navigate narrow streets and workers clad in hazardous materials hastily tearing down barricades. Social media users also criticized Xinjiang officials, who denied COVID controls played a role in the emergency response. One official even argued that those who died should be blamed, saying they didn’t try hard enough to escape the fire.
News of the blaze sparked rare public protests in Ürümqi on Friday, and anti-COVID zero frustration soon spread across the country. Protests to commemorate victims of the fire on Thursday escalated into broader protests against China’s COVID-zero policy in cities like Shanghai and Beijing and the country’s stagnant political system.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry accused “some forces with ulterior motives” in linking the Urumqi fire to COVID restrictions. Xinjiang is a political hotspot in China. Both human rights organizations and foreign governments such as the US have accused China of repressing the territory’s Uyghur population and their cultural practices and of engaging in a mass detention campaign that includes forced labour. Beijing denies the claims.
COVID frustrations
Thursday’s apartment fire is not the first outcry over China’s tough COVID measures.
Chinese residents have protested the denial of emergency medical services, speedy lockdowns, inadequate food supplies for those isolated and the deadly crash of a bus transporting close contacts of COVID patients to a quarantine center.
Last week there were clashes with security personnel at a factory of iPhone supplier Foxconn. Workers were angered by the factory’s hastily imposed COVID measures designed to keep operations running despite a COVID outbreak. The protesting workers were also worried about the spread of infection and were frustrated by unpaid wages. Foxconn offered $1,400 to workers who wanted to quit and return home to cool tensions.
Lockdowns are spreading as China battles a record-breaking COVID outbreak, with Nomura economists estimating that an area responsible for a fifth of China’s GDP is now in lockdown.
But local government officials seem to get the message about public frustration over COVID measures. On Saturday, Ürümqi authorities said the city had “eliminated COVID cases in society” and the COVID measures were being phased out.
And on Sunday, Beijing city officials banned the use of barricades to isolate quarantined apartment complexes, reiterating that emergency services should always be allowed.
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