As many of you probably are aware, this past weekend saw some astonishing albeit weirdly peaceful protests across China. Now, given the sensitivity of it all, I’m not going to voice the deepest opinions and unveil the worst footage I have collected, but if anybody is curious in private, hit me up on Discord and I’ll be happy to share privately. For here I’ll just casually inform.
The scope of these protests are seemingly underreported somewhat by the mainstream, and I resent that media such as the BBC say things like ‘protests are unusual in China’. This I might call a half truth.
There are in fact a LOT of protests ALL the time, but the stifling ultimate control over internet and all forms of communication means not only everybody has been raised in a society in which all citizens must speak in hushed tones and filtered opinions, but one’s ability to mass organize is close to impossible.
But not impossible.
This means when there are protests, they tend to be spontaneous, out of deep frustration or desperation, and extremely localized, small. If you travel around enough and keep track of the leaked videos over the years as I have, you’ll notice a lot of these brief protests and riots are in the dozens or hundreds, as a small countryside village rises up against the local authorities, only to be quelled when they bring in the big guns, disappear a few people and generally overwhelm,
China Dissent Monitor, a Freedom House project, has managed to collect data on this around the country, with 85 events of dissent in Hebei province alone in 2022 so far, 80% of which are categorised as ‘Group demonstration’.
(Translation: parents oppose segregation at school)
In this example, the most recent on the list in Heibei, an estimated 100 parents were protesting about their children who were locked into their school due to, you guessed it, the zero covid policy.
Most dissent is stamped out immediately, but this leaves the collective mindset of vengeance bubbling underneath, leading to axe wielding murderers constantly murdering children at schools, Among countless other singular expressions of hopelessness and anger.
Another example on China Dissent Monitor showed a group of 5 performers in a Tibetan Autonomous Region performing a song online praising the Dalai Lama. This was quickly shut down, and they were arrested. Because that’s illegal, by the way.
So I repeat, protests in China are not uncommon. They are just massively suppressed. The surveillance and police force have had many many years to build up their defenses against their own people; the CCP spends more money on domestic security than it does its military., tripled over the last decade.
But it’s true that mass, organized gatherings are indeed rare. And on this scale, borderline impossible. Which is why it is all the more impressive that this whole thing happened at all. Nobody is quite sure how. There’s no chance it could have been discussed on any forums or messaging apps. That would be immediately traced and stomped out. Apple, once a bastion of privacy, bowed down to the CCP one too many times, and while people started using the Airdrop function to travel anonymously around the metro systems, sharing information to people within range, Apple have since nipped that in the bud on demand from the CCP, and with a new China-only update, put that idea to death.
And yet, at least 10 major cities and dozens of smaller regions managed to protest with a single unified agenda, a single White Paper Movement.
…with a sprinkle of…
Although we have already seen the end of these protests, repeatedly compared with the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests which, let’s be honest, far outsizes these recent events, with up to a million participants and a span of 50 days or so before the crackdown and massacre began, the damage has already been done and its far reaching consequences yet to be known, but it must be a rather terrifying prospect for the CCP. Only last week, the idea of perpetual lockdown seemed like a great money making scheme with no consequences. Now, they are probably feeling a sense of dread whenever the higher echelons of government trickle down their quotas and instructions to lock the people up again.
But more concretely, we can see an immediate change in the global opinion of the Chinese people. You see, the CCP works hard to actively conflate the CCP with the people of China. This way, if you ever criticize the CCP, you are a racist. Using the western narrative against itself. Genius.
And to a large extent, it works. The CCP is bad, therefore, the Chinese people are bad. Go back to your own country. Yadda yadda. Of course, it doesn’t help that they also employ a vast, vast army of millions of nationalist trolls to go forth and spread the propaganda under almost every single iota of china-related content out in the world. There are entire factory farms of people spouting the same BS on identical, pre-scripted YouTube channels. Each one may only get a few hundred or thousand views, but combined, that has a powerful reach.
So it stands to reason the opinion of Chinese people is about as accurate as the USA’s opinion is of British people: ‘oy, fancy a cuppa? Be a darl an put the kettle on, By golly this round o' tennis was absolute poppycock’. Actually… I do hear myself in that more than I’d like to admit.
Sorry, I’m lying. I don’t even drink tea
The view of Chinese was of dirty, animal eating, hyper nationalist, wife-beating, corrupt copycats without a single original idea between the lot of them.
Although a lot of that is in many cases actually true, it is obviously not the case for the majority. They are crying out for help in exactly the same way the entire city of Hong Kong did before tragically being dragged into this hellhole alongside the rest of the mainland.
They know how to protest - peacefully and intelligently (protesting with a mathematical formula? Why, that’s Freedman!) - while also being incredibly brave. Remember, you go to prison for singing a song about the Dalai Lama. Imagine the risk you’re taking when you shout ‘cao ni ma xi jinping’ (fuck your mother, xi jinping) and ‘down with the CCP’ in front of a militaristic wall of corrupt, citizen brutalizing cops. That takes BALLS.
I started hearing the opinions of HK and Taiwanese people, shocked and proud of their Cultural counterparts in the mainland. A sense of unity crossed borders.
You see, it’s not about the race at all which breeds the evil and malice in the mainland. As Offred says in Handmaid’s Tale: ‘That place turns you into kind of a cunt’. For many people, they simply can’t get by any other way, or they simply never experienced being treated any other way, and so those traits we see in the mainland are actively forced upon the collective culture. We don’t see the same thing in Hong Kong or Taiwan.
And now, we see the explosion of what the majority are truly like deep down. They clearly want democracy, dignity and freedom, but they know not to expect it. Instead, they ask to end lockdowns. The message was sent and received. And Xi definitely heard. You know he hears when shit hits the fan because he tends to go weirdly silent until it goes away and somebody beneath him takes the hit, so he can wash his hands of the whole incident and continue about his day talking to yes men.
Will this time be any different? Ultimately, nah. Like I said, the forces controlling the people are so insanely integrated into society, there is no level of uprising that could overwhelm it. The CCP have, and will continue to throw the odd bones and scraps of compromise to quell any further dissent without actually making any difference, line the streets with thousands of forces to intimidate and make sure it doesn’t happen again, and continue as if it never happened.
That’s the Chinese Way.
Outside of China, however, I hope we can now better sympathize, empathize and understand the torment that goes on every day, and in any way we can, help those trapped in the world’s largest prison.
Do you hear the people sing?
