Chinese Covid Prisons
The lockdowns in China have resulted in riots and unrest. The catalysts seem to be the World Cup, the Foxconn riots, and the burning to death of 10 people locked inside their apartment for quarantine. This is the largest unrest since the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
As bad as the lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine mandates were and still are in some places in the West, The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has gone full police state. They have had off and on quarantines where people will be randomly trapped away from their homes, in a store or a different part of town. They have locked people inside their homes, turning entire buildings into makeshift prisons. They have even welded people’s home doors shut.
The soccer World Cup began on Sunday Nov 20, 2022. People in China saw that the rest of the world had largely stopped caring about covid.
Per China Insights at the 17 minute mark,[1]
“Many Chinese fans watched the games live. They were shocked to see that the players and virtually all spectators wore no masks. This is despite the fact that the CCP media, outside of the live broadcast, tried to blur out the audience as much as possible so the the Chinese audience couldn’t see that they weren’t wearing masks. but this strange move made the Chinese people speculate even more about the implications.”
The quarantines are so bad in China that many are effectively living in prison labor camps. Foxconn is a factory that produces over half of Apple’s iPhones. It employs 200,000. On Tuesday Nov 22, some workers began protesting against their slave-like conditions and several more have escaped.
According to Jess Weatherbed writing for The Verge on Nov 23,[2]
“The Wall Street Journal reports that protests started on Tuesday evening near Foxconn employee accommodations at the Zhengzhou facility. Foxconn’s strict covid controls have reportedly isolated its employees, forcing them to live and work on-site (with limited food and supplies) in order to prevent further outbreaks in Zhengzhou. Since October, many workers have escaped from the locked-down facility, leading Foxconn to promise incentives like higher salaries and bonuses to retain staff.”
Then on Thursday, Nov 24, 10 people burning to death.
Per an Nov 26 article published by the Associated Press,[3]
“During the news conference, Urumqi authorities said that fire escape doors were not locked and that residents were permitted to go downstairs ‘for activities’ since the community was designated as a ‘low COVID-19 risk area.’
‘Some residents’ ability to rescue themselves was too weak ... and they failed to escape in time,’ said Li Wensheng, head of the Urumqi City Fire Rescue department.
Muhammed Emin disputes that account, citing social media posts saying that many apartment residents were locked in their homes due to COVID-19 controls. Another post said that residents were permitted downstairs for only a few hours a day, and were not free to come and go from the building. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claims in the social media posts.”
Now, riots and unrest have broken out across the rest of the country.
On Nov 25, France 24 reported,[4]
“With China's daily caseload at 33,000 on Friday -- a record for the country of 1.4 billion -- the unrelenting zero-Covid push has sparked sporadic protests and hit productivity in the world's second-largest economy.
In the southeastern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, millions of people have been ordered not to leave their homes without a negative virus test.
Social media footage published on Friday and geolocated by AFP showed residents of the city's Haizhu district dismantling barricades and throwing objects at police in hazmat attire.”
Today, Nov 30, Zerohedge writes,[5]
“Protesters in the Chinese manufacturing city of Guangzhou clashed with hazmat suit-clad riot police Tuesday night, as anti-lockdown demonstrations escalated in the wake of protests in Shanghai, Beijing and other areas of the country.
In footage posted to social media, protesters in Haizhu district could be seen scuffling with security personnel, who were previously standing shoulder-to-shoulder under the cover of riot shields as the demonstrators threw objects at them.
[…]
According to the US-funded China Dissent Monitor operated by Freedom House, at least 27 demonstrations took place across China between Saturday and Monday, while Australia's ASPI think tank estimated there were 43 protests in 22 cities.”
The CCP is not trying to suppress the spread of covid. Keeping people from gathering together has everything to do with their workers' prison labor like conditions, the collapse of their real estate market, and the bank runs they have had this year.[6][7][8]
Will this unrest result in more freedom for the Chinese people? Will it cause the fall of Chairman Xi or even the Chinese Communist Party?
The last time that China experienced major unrest was in 1989 in Tiananmen Square. It resulted in a massacre.
According to the BBC,[9]
“No-one knows for sure how many people were killed.
At the end of June 1989, the Chinese government said 200 civilians and several dozen security personnel had died.
Other estimates have ranged from hundreds to many thousands.
In 2017, newly released UK documents revealed that a diplomatic cable from then British Ambassador to China, Sir Alan Donald, had said that 10,000 had died.”
Optimistically, access to the internet has eroded the CCP’s power to control what people see and think. Even though the internet is controlled by the CCP, the very nature of the internet makes the Chinese people more able to expose the unrest and the government’s violent suppression than in 1989.
The lockdowns in China have resulted in riots and unrest. The catalysts seem to be the World Cup, the Foxconn riots, and the burning to death of 10 people locked inside their apartment for quarantine. This is the largest unrest since the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFA_c9PjBEI
[2]https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474868/foxconn-iphone-factory-protest-riot-covid-lockdown
[3]https://apnews.com/article/china-fires-6a1b6902e6ccf87e064f1232045a2848
[7]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF__Gr_NVok&t=918s