Protesters in China Bypass Censors to Vent Anger

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

“Good good good sure sure sure right right right yes yes yes,” someone wrote on Weibo, China’s equivalent to Twitter.

The post may not sound like it was written by someone in a bad mood, but on the tightly controlled Chinese internet, the seemingly positive message is one of many ways the Chinese people are displaying their defiance toward the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Chinese citizens continued their protests on the internet on Dec. 1 as the heavy police presence in Shanghai and other major Chinese cities muted the unprecedented public outburst against the Chinese regime and its harsh COVID-19 restrictions.

Over the final weekend of November, protests swept the country. From the buzzing metropolis of Shanghai to the remote county of Korla, demonstrators could be seen chanting slogans against the regime’s draconian COVID curbs and demanding freedom. The mass protests have been dubbed the “White Paper Revolution” because of the many young demonstrators holding up blank sheets of white A4 paper.

Protesters shout slogans during a protest against the Chinese Communist Party's strict zero-COVID measures in Beijing on Nov. 28, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Chinese social media users tried to outmaneuver censors, racing to spread content related to the protests, which were ignored by almost all of the country’s official media.

Some recordings of the gathering in Shanghai successfully appeared on WeChat, a popular messaging platform in China, on Nov. 26. While such videos stayed up for only minutes before being taken down, they still excited many.

“I started refreshing constantly, and saving videos, and taking screenshots of what I could before it got censored,” Elliot Wang, a 26-year-old in Beijing, told The Associated Press. “A lot of my friends were sharing the videos of the protests in Shanghai. I shared them, too, but they would get taken down quickly.”

Censorship

Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the country’s internet via a complex, multi-layered censorship operation that blocks access to almost all foreign news and social media, and blocks topics and keywords considered politically sensitive or detrimental to the CCP’s rule. Videos of or calls to protest are usually deleted immediately.

A search on Weibo on Dec. 1 for the term, “Wulumuqi Middle Road,” a street where many Shanghai residents protested on Nov. 26, turned up mostly old posts, with the latest one from Nov. 2.

People show blank papers as a way to protest while gathering on Wulumuqi Middle Road in Shanghai on Nov. 27, 2022. Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP

To bypass censors, Chinese people have developed creative ways to express their dissent. For example, some posted blank white paper images, now a symbol of discontent against the authorities’ suppression of speech.

But with high efficiency, censors move to contain comments and images of white paper.

Some posts with the words “baizhi,” meaning white paper in Chinese, showing support for the protests have been scrubbed, according to Free Weibo, a website documenting censored posts on the country’s popular social media platform.

Comments containing “white paper” that are still visible on Weibo on Dec. 1 show diverse opinions, with most of them critical of the protests. No images of a single sheet of blank paper or of people holding paper at rallies can be found.

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

Others published sarcastic messages with a combination of seemingly positive words, such as “good,” “right,” and “yes.”

“From now on, I would only use the three expressions: right right right right right right yes yes yes yes yes yes sure sure sure sure sure sure,” a Weibo user wrote, accompanying screenshots showing accounts being blocked for violating Weibo’s regulation.

Another strategy is to use Chinese homonyms to evoke calls for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to resign, such as “shrimp moss,” which sounds like the words for “step down” and “banana peel,” which has the same initials as Xi.

Protest and COVID Curbs

The cat-and-mouse game between millions of Chinese internet users and the country’s gargantuan censorship machine came after an outpouring of grievance and outrage that was triggered by a deadly blaze on Nov. 24.

The fire, which killed at least 10, broke out in a high-rise apartment in Xinjiang’s Urumqi, parts of which have been under more than three months of lockdown. Many said the restrictions hampered residents’ ability to escape from the burning high-rise and delayed rescue efforts. While local officials denied the accusation, videos circulated on social media showed a spout of water from a distant fire truck falling short of the fire, sparking anger online.

The scene echoed millions of Chinese people who themselves have been sealed in their apartments for weeks, or even months, under the regime’s zero-COVID policy.

Residents in at least 10 Chinese cities took to the streets late in November, a rare display of public dissent in the communist country. The last time China saw such large-scale protests was in 1989, when tens of thousands of college students gathered at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to call for democracy and reform. The CCP responded by sending tanks and troops to crush the young protesters.

Police cars wait at an intersection as they patrol in an area where there were rumors of a planned protest against the country's zero-COVID measures in Beijing on Nov. 29, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

On Nov. 28, heavy security was seen at previous demonstration sites in Beijing and Shanghai. Amid foot patrols and flashlights from lines of police vehicles, planned protests in the capital on Nov. 28 were reportedly canceled.

Following the protests, some Chinese cities on Dec. 1 relaxed some COVID restrictions, though most of the requirements remain.

In Jinzhou, a city in the northwest province of Liaoning, officials said on Dec. 1 that it wouldn’t ease the COVID control restrictions, saying it will continue to implement the zero-COVID approach.

“It’s such a pity that we didn’t stamp out infection when we could,” reads a notice from the local authorities published on Weibo.

“Good good good right right right yes yes yes how dare I say no?” a commenter mocked.

Frank Fang and The Associated Press contributed to this report.