Unrest in the Socialist Paradise of the P.R.C.

27-11-2022 11:31pm #1

Unprecedented scenes coming out of China. It seems people are really getting fed up of the regimes zero covid policy. Protesters calling for the resignation of Xi Jinping and even the end of Communist Party rule. Will the government crack down with a Tiananemen Square style response or will they adopt a more cautious approach (by their standards)?

Considering that China has one of the most oppressive surveillance apparatuses in the world to watch over its population its interesting that protests have continued to grow regardless. One to watch in the coming days and weeks IMO.

igCorcaigh · 27-11-2022 11:33pm

China is not socialist, far from it.

I support the protesters, and hope for the best for Chinese people.

snotboogie · 27-11-2022 11:35pm

China could be in a bit of a bind here. Covid cases are exploding in Beijing and Chongqing at the moment, two cities that have been central to the protests. If they want to keep zero Covid they will need extensive lockdowns in those cities but that would inflame a very tense situation. This week will be interesting.

Odhinn · 27-11-2022 11:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058273630/unrest-in-the-socialist-paradise-of-the-p-r-c

I'd imagine a brutal crackdown is in the offing.

Yurt2 · 27-11-2022 11:43pm

Contrary to popular opinion in the West, protests aren't unprecedented in China, they're even let happen in certain circumstances if it suits the party's message. Usually the party can pawn-off the blame with whatever is going wrong to "corrupt local officials" (it's a bit of a meme in Chinese political life) - so some sucker provincial party boss following dictats from Beijing falls on his sword, an inevitable financial swindle is discovered, public anger is satisfied, and the system goes back to normal until the next thing.

The difference this time is that the zero-covid madness and never-ending harsh lockdowns is completely owned by Xi Jinping and the geriatric faction surrounding him. He can't wash his hands of it and there's no getting away from that it's his will.

Won't even bother making a prediction where this will go, but these protests are unique in that they are so geographically widespread and people are explicitly pointing the finger at the fossils in Zhongnanhai and Xi.

Gatling · 27-11-2022 11:44pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929354#Comment_119929354

Considering what they did in tiananmen square ,if these protests catch fire and turn violent the crack down will be more bloody than anything we have ever seen,the kept hong Kong pretty clean due to international coverage mainland china will be different, considering their security apparatus is way more advanced than at the time of tiananmen square along with an even more deadly and modern military.

Let's hope this doesn't go bad

igCorcaigh · 27-11-2022 11:45pm

Is the Chinese COVID vaccine so ineffective, that they (the authorities) fear the virus so much? Or is there something else going on?

Yurt2 · 27-11-2022 11:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929399#Comment_119929399

Yes, the Chinese vaccine is sh*te and was only adopted as a point of national prestige. And in fairness, given the amount of chest-thumping nationalism and conspiracy theorizing about the intentions of the West encouraged by the party, people may well have rejected non-Chinese vaccines in any case.

Whatever they are reporting, they also have not vaccinated as high a percentage of their population as European countries for instance, even allowing for the crappy domestic vaccine. Getting two shots to 1.4 billion people (with many in rural areas being unregistered ghost citizens due to the one child policy) was something that was never going to happen.

Gatling · 27-11-2022 11:51pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929399#Comment_119929399

It was always a weird response to COVID-19,on one hand we would see mass public sanitizing efforts ,and on another hand they were posting the military to cities and population centers threatening anyone with death if they tried to leave,the rest of the world is moving on and opening up meanwhile china has go to extreme Lockdowns only seen in movies

riclad · 27-11-2022 11:54pm

The problem is they refuse to licence the more effective vaccine from american company's so there continue to be outbreaks of COVID in citys if there's a no of cases of COVID they lock down the whole city , everyone has to be tested , workers in a factory were forced to sleep in dorms with people who had COVID ,

Meanwhile in western country's most people are triple vaxxed if there's a few cases of COVID we don't lock down the whole city even Chinese people are fed up with constant lockdowns this policy is simply not working they need to change it

before the protests get worse

It's hard for the government to admit zero COVID policy is not working it's not effective and its causing foreign company's like apple to look for other country's to build products

joseywhales · 27-11-2022 11:54pm

If only there was a readily available effective vaccine they could purchase and administer to reduce the effects of the inevitable nationwide outbreak that is obviously coming.

Gatling · 28-11-2022 12:00am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929432#Comment_119929432

As mentioned on the bbc

3 years of permanent Lock downs ,how long do they think going down this route is going to work financial bubble heading for a crash, wanting to invade Taiwan and trying to forcibly detain huge parts of their population and workforce is never going to end well,

Emblematic · 28-11-2022 12:04am

The thing that saved the West was that our authorities simply weren't as good at imposing restrictions as they would have liked. We were saved by the very thing they feared the most, the highly virulent Omicron strain which swept through our population conferring immunity making a mockery of restrictions.

China, on the other hand, was too successful with restrictions and the virus had no chance to spread. They've painted themselves into a corner politically. The only way forward is to "lose" the battle with Covid, as we have done, and move on but how do you explain such a U-turn to the people you've been locking up?

Danzy · 28-11-2022 12:07am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929331#Comment_119929331

They are never proper Communist or Socialist, yet it always ends with the same pic and mix of mass murder, genocide, extermination camps and brutal oppression.

We'll label them as near to proper Communist pending the arrival of those who do it properly and in a lasting manner at there

28-11-2022 12:10am

Since the regimes grip on its own media is total thereby rendering it useless for objective news, it appears hard to find sources of independent news if you want to look beyond the mainstream media like the BBC, Sky, CNN etc. One source I found is the China Digital Times based in California. It seems ok.

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/

Drumpot · 28-11-2022 12:31am

Its easy to presume in Russia and moreso China it’s already game over for freedom of the people. Be mad to see a fire in an apartment being the spark that starts something. Interesting to keep an eye on this.

Mad_maxx · 28-11-2022 12:42am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929331#Comment_119929331

Only nice things happen in truly socialist states

28-11-2022 12:45am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929544#Comment_119929544

Taiwan is an example as to what can happen IMO. It had its own authoritarian regime (Chiang Kai-Shek) but progressively transitioned into a model democracy. China’s bluster about reunifying it with the ‘motherland’ masks a deeper fear of what could happen to the regime if discontent really took hold I believe. The regime always goes nuts if anyone even mentions Taiwan as a remotely different entity.

Dyr · 28-11-2022 1:11am

I can remember all the media commentatotors telling me the PRC was done for during the protests in 89

Turned out the Chinese werent actually that big on revolution that time, doubt its changed as edifiying as it would be to see a bunch of Communists swinging from lamp posts.

Gatling · 28-11-2022 1:38am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929621#Comment_119929621

Tanks, machine guns and bayonets helped to make sure that it what started at tiananmen square ended there, followed by the complete white washing of history,

I half expect a group of posters to appear to tell us it's the CIA stirring things and America should stay out before we get another ukraine

Dyr · 28-11-2022 1:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929664#Comment_119929664

Dont worry Clare Daly will be letting us know that we need to be on the side of peace once some dictatorship is losing

joebloggs32 · 28-11-2022 1:49am

2023 could be one of those years like 89/90 when we see massive upheaval globally.

Hopefully Putins regime finally gets turfed out. Iran still looks shakey and now discontent in China.

However there is always then the issue of how destabilising it could all be. We were lucky really looking back to how it played out in Europe when communism collapsed

Yurt2 · 28-11-2022 2:07am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929664#Comment_119929664

There's already bots all over Twatter trying to peg it as an attempted CIA colour revolution.

Those spooks in Langley are some boyos however they manage it.

28-11-2022 2:14am

Theres a cartoonist on the Radio Free Asia website called ‘Rebel Pepper’ who frequently lampoons Xi Jinping and his buddy in North Korea. Worth following.

https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/xijinping-ccp-11142022163011.html

thinkabouit · 28-11-2022 2:18am

What would Ireland be like if we were in Chinese citizens position?

Come on lads, let this Covid bullshit go for heavens sake.

Yurt2 · 28-11-2022 2:19am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929679#Comment_119929679

The collapse of the Eastern Bloc was softened massively by some of the choices made at the time. For instance, it wasn't altogether clear that Germany would be permitted to unify. Both Thatcher and Mitterand were hostile to it. People may guffaw, but Ireland held the European Presidency at the time, and played a pretty significant role in smoothing-over opposition to allowing the East integrate into the Bundesrepublik and thus into the EC.

Eastern Bloc countries had an obvious path to reform with European integration, which required no-little goodwill and openness from the Western European states. It's amazing to think now that there was any sort of serious opposition to EU expansion. The EU without the likes of Czech Republic or Poland is unthinkable now.

Whatever the vicissitudes of history throws at us, we can handle it. We have the institutions, the social cohesion and the will to face it down. That's the difference between us and the calcified autocracies in Bejing, Tehran and Moscow. Losing grip on power for them could mean answering for crimes and swinging from a rope, and they go down fighting taking innocents with them.

MrMusician18 · 28-11-2022 2:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058273630/unrest-in-the-socialist-paradise-of-the-p-r-c

Hardly unprecedented, when you even cite the precedent

28-11-2022 2:32am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119929716#Comment_119929716

First time personally I’ve witnessed people bravely coming out in public and calling for Xi Jinping to quit and CCP rule to end, if you believe the reports coming out. Thats unprecedented I think.

Yurt2 · 28-11-2022 2:50am

Large crowd protesting at Liangmaqiao in central Beijing yesterday evening. For those that don't know Beijing, that's a pretty bourgeoisie part of the city, with lots of people working in good white collar jobs for blue-chip foreign and Chinese companies alike. Within the wealthiest district of the capital (Chaoyang District broadly).

xxxxxxl · 28-11-2022 8:50am

Could get serious very fast they might have a large standing army and police force but china also has 1.4 billion people there is no way if it kicks off to stop it.

xxxxxxl · 28-11-2022 9:05am

https://www.msn.com/en-ie/news/uknews/chinese-authorities-detain-and-beat-up-bbc-journalist/ar-AA14CFxV?cvid=890ef4b0a90c40cd84e66acc89fba828&ocid=winp2fptaskbarmouseenter

will go down well.

Unrest in the Socialist Paradise of the P.R.C.

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