It has been a long time since demonstrators filled the streets of Chinese cities crying out, “We want freedom!” and “The Chinese Communist Party should step down!” But the seemingly unthinkable has happened in recent days as an upwelling of protest erupted against Beijing’s draconian “zero COVID” policies and then morphed into a more general expression of opposition against the suffocating controls that the CCP has imposed on Chinese society.
Do these events threaten the reign of President Xi Jinping, who has just been anointed with a third term as general secretary of the party? Are they a historical tipping point? Or will they prove to be an epiphenomenon that the well-organized CCP will easily bring to heel with more repression? After all, in the wake of the far more tectonic 1989 demonstrations, and even the ensuing Beijing massacre around Tiananmen Square, Chinese leaders not only put the protest genie back in the bottle but also went on to initiate a period of impressive economic growth and stability.
