Sparks of Resistance Against the CCP Ignite Over China, Showing the Regime’s Vulnerabilities

CCP police officers, accompanied by police dogs, conduct security scans at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, on March 10, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Recently, there has been a wave of protests against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) within China, which were very rare in the past due to the CCP’s control of the population. For the CCP, these protests are very concerning since they will not be able to cope with them once they spread rapidly.

Videos have been circulating on social media platforms of some of the protest events in Guizhou province, Jiangxi province, and the capital city of Beijing.

Clash With Riot Police

On Jan. 9, hundreds of villagers in Qianxinan Prefecture, Guizhou Province protested to protect the funeral customs handed down from generation to generation, refusing the local government’s new policy to centralize the disposal of cremated remains. The protesters clashed with armed police and SWAT teams that went to seize the bodies of the deceased and drove the police out of the village.

Cai Fengyu (pseudonym), a local villager, said in an interview with The Epoch Times on Jan. 16 that earth burial is a custom that has been handed down from generation to generation. “The government began to implement mandatory cremation in 2017. On Oct. 26 that year, there was also a body-snatching incident [by the authorities] because the villagers were few. Since then, the villagers have been cremated after death,” he said.

Mr. Cai described the situation at that time: “On Jan. 9 at around 3 am in the middle of the night, about two to three hundred riot police raided the village, looking for the ashes of the deceased at home. As soon as they entered the village, they began to beat up the villagers. The first to be beaten was a drunken villager, and later a pregnant woman was also beaten up. The villagers’ cars were also smashed.”

“When an old man in the village dies, the family cremates the body, and the ashes are prepared for burial. Due to the funeral, relatives from abroad have come, and the population in the village increased quite a lot. When the people heard that the police raided the village to beat up people, every family had someone out protesting,” he said.

According to Mr. Cai, the police were entering every home with a recently deceased person to seize the ashes for centralized disposal. The villagers fought back, and the riot police eventually retreated. They even took a child as a hostage. In the end, the police were driven out, and the villagers continued to organize funerals in the form of earth burial.

“The villagers did not agree to move the ashes to the so-called centralized ‘cemetery’ for another reason,” said Mr. Cai. “The ‘cemetery’ costs quite a lot, and you have to pay for it again twenty years later. Essentially, the authorities made death unaffordable for the common people.”

Denouncing the CCP as a Cult

In a Jan. 14 video circulating on social media, a human rights activist in Linchuan, Jiangxi Province, denounces the CCP as “traitorous” and as a “cult.”

In the video, the man questioned the police: “Why can’t the people have oversight on you?” He denounced the CCP: ”If a regime cannot be held accountable to the people, it must be a cult, and it must be tyrannical. A  regime that rules the people with fear must be a tyrannical regime.”

He also said: “You, the Chinese Communist Party, were founded by the Soviet communists. So frankly, you guys are a group of traitors.” His words rendered the police speechless.

‘Wanted for Questioning’

On Jan. 14, a video was circulating on X of a police officer breaking into a dinner party for professors at Peking University’s law school to question one of them, but the police were reprimanded by the other professors and then left in disgrace.

In the video, the police officer told the professors who videotaped him that he could record the whole incident but not post it on the internet. A professor refuted saying that is not what the law says.

The behavior of the police was reprimanded by a chorus of law professors who said that they failed to follow all the legal procedures to seize a person for questioning.

Gao Yu, a senior reporter in Beijing, reposted this video on X with the caption: “At the moment, gatherings of Beijing’s intellectuals have become forbidden by state security and the police, but this Haidian Branch police officer went so far as to break into the restaurant where professors from Peking University’s School of Law were gathering to question one of the professors, without even declaring his name. It was indeed in violation of the law.”

Random Searches by the Police

Recently, the CCP has been sending out the police to randomly check the personal information and cell phones of pedestrians and public transportation users in Beijing.

One woman was recently stopped at the Jianguomen subway station by three plainclothes individuals claiming to be police officers, asking for her cooperation in verifying her identity. The woman steadfastly refused to cooperate and shouted, “Why do you need to verify my identity? You have to explain why. Are you wearing police uniforms? Do I need an ID check to take the subway? Am I breaking the law?”

After the lady’s questioning, a policeman in uniform came and asked the lady to cooperate. During the conversation, he said, “We have no intention of persecuting you.” It was reported that the woman was eventually taken to the police station for questioning.

In response, independent Chinese writer Zhuge Mingyang told The Epoch Times: “The police officer’s words were very interesting. He said he had no intention of ‘persecuting’ this woman, which is an indirect admission that police persecution of ordinary people is a common practice. If there is no such thing as persecution by the CCP authorities, why did he try to make a point that this is not persecution?”

Tiananmen Square Tricycle Incident

Beijing has reportedly banned electric tricycles from the roads since Jan. 1 this year, and the city council has forcibly seized electric tricycles, even those used by couriers. Not allowing electric tricycles on the road has caused great inconvenience for the elderly to go to the hospital and for parents to pick up children. A senior citizen in Beijing was so upset that he intentionally rode an electric tricycle into the Tiananmen Square restricted area.

The video shows a three-wheeler rushing into Tiananmen Square, and the police mobilized several police cars to block the vehicle.

A bystander angrily said, “The CCP is the only party in the world that hates the Chinese people.”

In response to these protests, Mr. Zhuge said: “in less than a month into the new year, there have been some significant events in China with many public protests against the tyranny of the CCP. This is a huge deal. In the past, most Chinese people dared not speak out at all, but this has changed. It shows the decline of the CCP. This phenomenon is extremely realistic and has a domino effect, which the CCP will not be able to cope with once it spreads.”