Chinese Regime Stresses Social Stability in Response to COVID Protests

Protesters gather along a street during a rally for the victims of a deadly fire as well as a protest against China's harsh COVID-19 restrictions in Beijing on Nov. 28, 2022. Michael Zhang / AFP via Getty Images

China’s ruling authorities recently ordered a purported crackdown on mass protests that have erupted across China against the communist party’s COVID-19 measures. Although many Chinese cities eased the pandemic control restrictions a few days later, local communist party leaders in several provinces have begun to deploy crackdowns.

Analysts believe it is unlikely that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will deploy troops and tanks this time to quell the protests.

Chen Wenqing, head of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, claimed at a meeting on Nov. 28 that it was necessary to “combat the infiltration and sabotage of hostile forces” and “maintain the general stability of society.”

All key officials in the CCP’s judicial system—Wang Xiaohong, minister of public security; Zhou Qiang, head of the Supreme Court; and Zhang Jun, prosecutor general of the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office—were in attendance at the meeting. Chen’s statement is being considered by observers as a declaration of the CCP’s stance on the “White Paper Revolution.”

Protesters hold up a white piece of paper against censorship as they march during a protest against China's strict zero-COVID measures, in Beijing, on Nov. 27, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

White Paper

Starting from Nov. 26, people in many parts of China held rallies to mourn the victims of the Urumqi fire and turned the mourning into protests against the CCP’s “zero-COVID” virus eradication measures. Protesters have been holding pieces of blank A4 white paper, condemning the CCP’s suppression of free speech.

Hong Kong protesters were the first to hold up the blank sheets of white paper in defiance of the CCP’s national security law, under which expressing pro-democracy slogans could be considered a criminal act of sedition by the regime.

A Russian activist and blogger named Aslan Sagutdinov was the first to adopt the tactic in Kazakhstan during their protests in 2019. He correctly predicted his arrest for holding a blank sheet of paper.

“I want to show that the idiocy in our country has gotten so strong that the police will detain me now even though there are no inscriptions, no slogans, without my chanting or saying anything,” he said at the time.

CCP Wants Stability

In response to the mass protests, CCP heads in different regions convened meetings to strengthen their “social stability” work.

On Nov. 29, Chongqing’s party boss Chen Min'er claimed at a special municipal meeting on epidemic prevention and control that he wanted to maintain “general social stability” and the so-called normal order of epidemic prevention.

On the same day, Xu Qin, the party boss of Heilongjiang Province, hosted a meeting to deploy epidemic prevention and control, as well as the “stability” work related to petitions.

Ma Xingrui, party boss of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, held meetings for three consecutive days from Nov. 26 to 28, to ask local officials and law enforcers to “sternly combat violent resistance to epidemic preventive and control measures” and strengthen control of Internet information. The capital city of Xinjiang, Urumqi, is where the deadly fire broke out and ignited China’s nationwide COVID protests, the “White Paper Revolution.”

On Nov. 28, Wang Junzheng, party boss of Tibet, also said at a meeting that “maintaining stability” should be the number one task.

A large number of police officers were sent to protest sites. In many regions, protesters were arrested and taken away in police vans. Even after the crowds dispersed, authorities continued to tighten their control, stepping up Internet censorship, checking people’s cell phones on subways and on the streets for protest-related information, and checking for VPN software that allows Chinese people to circumvent the CCP’s Great Firewall.

Chinese universities sent students home earlier than usual for the winter break, which observers say could have been a tactic to prevent them from gathering at protests.

How Will the CCP Respond?

“In recent years, the Chinese regime has been using big data to monitor and control everything,” Tang Jingyuan, a China expert, told The Epoch Times on Nov. 30.

He said the CCP’s suppression of COVID protests this time has one outstanding feature.

“It combines its usual ’maintaining stability maintenance' with the current epidemic control. So in my opinion, this time, ‘maintaining stability’ and ‘epidemic control’ are integrated, in that epidemic control has been turned into a tool to maintain stability, and conversely, ‘maintaining stability’ has been a major approach to implement its zero-COVID policy—continuously ramping up the degree of closure,” Tang said.

Huangpu District of Shanghai on Nov. 30 asked residents to prepare at least 60 days’ worth of food and daily supplies in preparation for a possible COVID-19 lockdown. Tang thinks this means the CCP will continue its harsh epidemic control measures as a means of punishment for the protests.

“In fact, it wants to suppress public opinion in this way, not only to suppress those who directly resist, but also to suppress the public opinion and sentiment. Because in its view, those who stand up to it are just representatives, as almost everyone wants to end the zero-COVID policy,” he said.

Spontaneous

Chen Weijian, editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring, a monthly magazine concerned with China’s democracy movement, also expressed his opinion in an interview with The Epoch Times on Nov. 30.

“I think there will definitely be a crackdown, but it is still hard to predict what kind of measures the CCP will take. It’s unlikely that it would deploy massive field troops and tanks that came in on June 4, 1989, at Tiananmen Square [to suppress the student movement]. The regime had no armed police at that time, and the public security system was not yet well equipped,” Chen said.

Now, the CCP has its security department, public security system, and armed police system equipped with electronic surveillance, and face recognition technology. It may adopt different methods of suppression, Chen said.

“It is more likely that the Hong Kong model will be used to conduct comprehensive surveillance and tracking, and then arrest protesters one by one,” he said. ”A main difference between now and then is that the Tiananmen Square Movement had a very strong political demand for democratization and, frankly speaking, this pursuit was equivalent to asking for the ending of one-party dictatorship. Therefore, the CCP adopted a very violent approach, directly deploying the army to shoot at the protesters.”

“But the goal of the White Paper Movement at the beginning was a simple livelihood demand, asking for more personal freedom. The protesters’ main action and pursuits are centered around lifting the lockdowns,” he continued. “Therefore, strictly speaking, the White Paper Movement was completely spontaneous, and there was no orderly organization behind it, so it was different from the Tiananmen Square Movement.”

Tang also believes that under the current circumstances, and given the scale of the White Paper Movement at this stage, it is unlikely that the CCP will mobilize its military to suppress it.

He also believes that the CCP will continue to take stricter control measures against Shanghai, where the protests were most intense, as well as other cities with a high level of popular resistance and public anger.