The recent protests in China against the country’s zero-COVID policy have been unprecedented in their scale, intensity and distribution. Protestors numbering in the thousands were reported in dozens of cities. Not since 1989’s Tiananmen Square protests has there been such widespread civil disobedience.
The protests do not signify the imminent collapse of the Chinese Communist Party regime, but they are a big challenge to the authority of the party’s general secretary Xi Jinping, the president of China. They also have far-reaching implications for China’s domestic economy and society, as well as for international firms and the global economy.
International reaction to the protests was a mix of awe at the scale and fear about the consequences. But there was also hope that COVID controls might be loosened further, reopening China and unblocking recent global supply chain bottlenecks.
