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<\/p>\n\/\/While local protests in China over environmental, labour and land disputes are not uncommon, the rare wave of blank-paper protests that spilled across China\u2019s wealthiest cities \u2013 all targeting President Xi Jinping\u2019s zero-Covid policy \u2013 represents a challenge of the type the country\u2019s leaders have not faced for decades.<\/p>\n
The protests erupted last weekend after a fire at a residential block in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, claimed 10 lives.<\/p>\n
\u2026Fang Kecheng, assistant professor of journalism at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said the deaths had fuelled \u201cthe public\u2019s anxiety over whether their children too would be trapped and their fire exits would be blocked too during lockdowns\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fang added: \u201cThe Urumqi fire, to them, is a symbol of resonating traumatic experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe protests really show that earlier public support towards the government in 2020 and 2021 was really performance-based rather than blindly centralised to a certain ideology or leader,\u201d Fang said. \/\/<\/p>\n
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\/\/While local protests in China over environmental, labour and land disputes are not uncommon, the rare wave of blank-paper protests that spilled across China\u2019s wealthiest cities \u2013 all targeting President…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","media_coverage_categories":[516],"by_months":[1158],"class_list":["post-26310","media_coverages","type-media_coverages","status-publish","media_coverage_categories-516","by_months-december"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n