“Food, not PCR tests … Reform, not the Cultural Revolution … We want to be citizens, not slaves.” And alongside that, most astonishingly, a call to overthrow Xi Jinping. The man who dared to unveil those demands on banners hung from a bridge in Beijing will pay dearly. Protests are still rarer and more harshly treated since Mr Xi took over; this was even more remarkable in the heavily policed period before the national party congress begins on Sunday. When China’s leader took power 10 years ago, people assumed he would depart at this meeting – his two predecessors left after two five-year terms. Instead, it will begin his third stint and entrench his status as the country’s most powerful figure since Mao Zedong.
In the wake of Maoism’s disasters, the elite’s survivors, including Mr Xi’s own father, collectivised and semi-institutionalised politics to prevent another strongman wreaking havoc. But under the last leader, Hu Jintao, China’s problems – from grotesque corruption and gross inequality to soaring protests and environmental destruction – grew increasingly obvious. So did the party’s inability to solve them. That, and the Arab spring, explains a turn to repression that preceded Mr Xi but which he intensified.
