NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

China ‘zero-Covid’ protests: This could be the beginning of the end for Xi Jinping

By Matthew Henderson
Daily Telegraph UK·
28 Nov, 2022 12:37 AM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
15CommentsSave

    Share this article

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern urges China's president to use influential powers to de-escalate North Korea and Russia tensions. Video / Claire Trevett / Ella Wilks
Opinion by Matthew Henderson

OPINION

Xi Jinping, China’s newly reappointed supreme leader, relies on his capacity to stifle popular dissent. He has drained billions from state funds to create an Orwellian web of digital national security to detect and suppress criticism of himself and the Communist Party. But it has failed. The challenge of Covid has proved too acute and even the strictest lockdown no longer silences the cries of China’s oppressed citizens.

When the Covid outbreak was first revealed online by Dr Li Wenliang in December 2019, he was accused by the Chinese authorities of subversive fabrication. No lockdown measures were implemented for around three weeks. Shortly before his death from the virus, he told reporters that “a healthy society should not have just one voice”. Before censorship bit down, social media was briefly flooded with expressions of solidarity with Li. Three years later, despite draconian “hard lockdown” measures promoted by Xi himself, Covid continues to spread, while social media increasingly manages to project dissenting voices. Now they are on the streets.

Protesters have called for Chinese President Xi Jinping to resign. Photo / AP
Protesters have called for Chinese President Xi Jinping to resign. Photo / AP

The pressure has been building for months. Last month, Beijing was gripped by hardline security measures ahead of the Communist Party Congress. Yet something extraordinary happened. Social media videos circulated showing banners being unfurled on a Beijing bridge calling for strikes by students and workers, exhorting the Chinese people to be “citizens, not slaves” and demanding the removal of Xi, branding him a “dictator and national traitor”. In April, meanwhile, videos emerged from Shanghai in which residents in gleaming residential towers screamed into the city night their desperation and rage at Xi’s merciless lockdown policies.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Now, Covid infection levels across China have broken previous records, and once again Shanghai is at the eye of the storm. In the past couple of days, protests have grown, mourning a fire in a partly locked-down Xinjiang tower block in which 10 residents are thought to have died. Shanghai protesters took up their plight as a symbol of wider Communist oppression, demanding freedom and the lifting of lockdown not just for Xinjiang but all of China, and the overthrow of the Party and Xi himself.

These events come only a month after the Party Congress at which Xi consolidated his autocratic grip on power. They could well indicate that he may not be able to maintain it as long as he hopes. Lately, he has talked about “people-friendly policies” and the need to promote “common prosperity”. But a tipping point seems to have been reached at which the citizens of China have had enough.

The Chinese are now staging massive protests to combat continuing covid lockdowns in their country. pic.twitter.com/nxe207d21N

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) November 27, 2022

The CCP headquarters in Beijing proclaims Mao’s injunction to “Serve the People”; protesters in Shanghai are demanding that their leaders do exactly that, saying explicitly that they want democracy in place of dictatorship. Social unrest has begun breaking out in other major cities, including Wuhan and Beijing, where students have just held large anti-regime demonstrations at Peking and Tsinghua Universities – inevitably evoking memories of their role in 1989′s Tiananmen massacre.

Read More

  • China protests: Crowds angered by lockdowns - call ...
  • PM Jacinda Ardern meets China’s President Xi Jinping, ...
  • What Xi Jinping’s re-election in China means for NZ ...
  • Claire Trevett: The implicit warning to PM Jacinda ...

Xi began his decade in supreme power by paying lip service to China’s benign role, where cooperation between nations would bring “win-win” benefits to all. In this rose-tinted mist, his intelligence and influence apparat exploited Western venality and ignorance to achieve widespread penetration of liberal political elites and their key national infrastructure.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Xi’s aggressive handling of Covid-19, however, contrary to the false projection of personal victory over the virus, has alienated not only the Chinese people but democracies and their partners across the world. “Win-win” saccharine has given way to “wolf warrior” aggression backed up by military expansionism. International concerns about Chinese ambitions have multiplied, save among collaborators such as Russia, Syria and North Korea.

China 🇨🇳

Protests are erupting across China as people have had enough of the draconian zero Covid lockdowns. This is what eventually happens when people power mobilises against oppressive governments that take away freedoms and human dignity. pic.twitter.com/NsZgZTxEYT

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) November 27, 2022

Xi wishes only to win an existential Marxian struggle with everything that could threaten the CCP. Hong Kong has been broken on his wheel. His totalitarian “China dream” looks increasingly nightmarish. The citizens of all mainland China – not just Xinjiang and Tibet – are his victims as well. More than ever, as they face an inevitable crackdown, their interests are ours; a fact on which responsible political and corporate China strategies should be founded.

Save

    Share this article

15

Comments

Latest from World

World

'Not an attack': Zoo owner defends lioness after woman loses arm

08 Jul 07:50 AM
World

‘Not happy’: Trump criticises Putin as US vows more arms for Ukraine

08 Jul 06:12 AM
World

Trump's tariff threats spark uncertainty, target key US allies

08 Jul 05:51 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

'Not an attack': Zoo owner defends lioness after woman loses arm

'Not an attack': Zoo owner defends lioness after woman loses arm

08 Jul 07:50 AM

A woman remains in hospital after being injured by a big cat at Darling Downs Zoo.

‘Not happy’: Trump criticises Putin as US vows more arms for Ukraine

‘Not happy’: Trump criticises Putin as US vows more arms for Ukraine

08 Jul 06:12 AM
Trump's tariff threats spark uncertainty, target key US allies

Trump's tariff threats spark uncertainty, target key US allies

08 Jul 05:51 AM
Court reveals mystery of missing phone in Erin Patterson murder trial

Court reveals mystery of missing phone in Erin Patterson murder trial

08 Jul 04:55 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP
search by queryly Advanced Search