Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping was elected in November to another term by the puppet People's National Congress.
Tensions have been simmering in China for some time now, with swathes of the country fed up of President Xi Jinping's zero-Covid approach to handling outbreaks of coronavirus.But these fresh protests were sparked by something more specific - the deaths of 10 people, killed when a block of flats in the city of Urumqi, capital of the western Xinjiang region, caught fire on Thursday. The incident enraged people online, with many commenting on the fact Urumqi had been under strict Covid restrictions since early August.

One resident told the BBC that people living in the compound had largely been prevented from leaving their homes. Authorities have now promised to phase out Covid restrictions, but deny that they stopped people escaping the fire.
As we've been reporting, protests continued into the night in the capital Beijing and also China's biggest city, the financial hub Shanghai. Protests have also taken place during the day in the south-western city of Chengdu and central cities of Xi'an and also Wuhan - where the Covid outbreak originated nearly three years ago. Videos posted on social media appear to show hundreds of Wuhan residents taking to the streets, with some protesters pictured knocking down barricades and smashing metal gates.

It was during Saturday night's protest in Shanghai that people were heard openly shouting slogans such as "Xi Jinping, step down" and "Communist party, step down".
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-63776816

The Chinese have also been enraged when they watch TV coverage of events at the World Cup in Qatar and people in bleachers are unmasked. BBC said that Chinese state TV is editing coverage so it doesn't show people in the stadiums.
Last edited by highdesert on Mon Nov 28, 2022 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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China is no longer imposing a national lockdown, but the central government is telling local authorities to impose strict lockdowns in their areas when they detect a Covid-19 outbreak - even if only a handful of cases are found. It is one of the toughest anti-Covid regimes in the world and these local lockdowns last until no new infections are reported. Tens of millions of people have been living under some kind of lockdown since the latest wave of cases emerged. Such is the scale of these measures that the Chinese government website listing streets and buildings with outbreaks (which also classifies them as low or high risk) runs to over 120 pages - with tens of thousands of places under sever restrictions.

Mass testing is carried out in places where cases have been reported. People found to have Covid-19 are isolated at home or placed under quarantine at a government-supervised facility. Businesses and schools are closed, and so are all shops except for those selling food. However, some rules have been relaxed. Infected people are now kept in isolation for only eight days - five days at an isolation centre, plus three days of isolation at home - rather than 10 days.
Many young women are at the forefront of the Covid protests across China and are showing up as prominent voices in footage emerging on social media. In one of the viral videos, a female student at the prestigious Tsinghua University - also the alma mater of Chinese leader Xi Jinping - led the crowds in chanting they would no longer kneel before "public power”. There is a lot of grievance and anger among young Chinese women, Feng Yuan, co-founder of Beijing-based NGO Equality, told the BBC.

“From the chained mother of eight in Xuzhou to the assaulted women in Tangshan, women have been silenced whenever they want to speak out,” she said. Yang, who is in her early 20s, joined the protest in Shanghai last night. “In the past, there were leaders in the mass movements or there were plans,” she said, but the Covid protests have instead been “spontaneous”, with no organisation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-63776816

People are seen holding up blank sheets of paper representing censorship. One of the most violent riots was at the Foxconn complex in Shanghai over wages. Foxconn is where the Apple iPhone and other smartphones and computers are assembled. Workers there are also protesting COVID restrictions, if any workers are found to be COVID positive they have to quarantine at the Foxconn complex, they can't return home.

Videos
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/10462520

Xi and the Evil CCP will survive and yes they'll blame it on fake news and Western spies.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Yes Foxconn is a great Taiwanese company along with HTC, ASUS and many more, just another reason why mainland China covets Taiwan. Xi and his thugs have crippled Hong Kong and have their eyes on Taiwan, they'd probably also have their eyes on Singapore if it was closer.

Apple's iPhone hasn't fully made the break with Foxconn in Shanghai and other cities of China, but they have moved some operations to India. Google's Pixel is supposed to have moved their assembly from Foxconn Shanghai to Vietnam. A number of people I know are trying to avoid buying any products from China, it's tough. My ASUS laptop is from a Taiwanese company, but they are assembled in China.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Apple already has some products being assembled in Vietnam. They are also building their own chip manufacturing plant here in the US.

It is sometimes hard to find out where things are really manufactured . I remember wen Ford was advertising their pickups as being built strong for Americans when they were being assembled in Mexico, thanks to NAFTA.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Foxconn is making big promises of investments here in Tucson, Arizona… I suspect there must be a political reason for that.

Though I was making light of the fact that any authoritarian like Xi has a habit of blaming “separatists” for his own problems by making unverifiable lies and persecution, the fact remains that Taiwan is truly the golden goose for hi-tech manufacturing in China. And no, you cannot keep those lucrative Taiwanese electronics factories humming in China by “taking” Taiwan, or forced repatriation, or nationalization, or whatever. No, China does not “covet Taiwan” because of these factories… Quite the opposite! It is these lucrative business ties that keeps Xi from acting out personal fantasies of global military domination. The moment anyone lobs a missile at Taiwan, the Taiwanese factory stop rolling, millions of mainland Chinese factory workers are out of their jobs, Xi faces even more discontent than he is facing now due to his Zero-Covid policy and repression on personal freedoms.

Unlike a real goose that lays tangible golden eggs, all the wealth of those Taiwanese factories are actually business relationships, contracts, and notes. The moment any party gets burned, the entire arrangement goes up in smoke with immediate consequences for all parties involved. Empty factories are not anything remotely like a golden egg that you can still trade, convert to coins or so something with.

I suspect that Taiwan business leaders are indeed as sensitive to threats as the golden goose. And believe me, all that wealth cannot exist without business leaders protecting their interests against a single politician willing to upset the income (bakshish?) of so many others in political offices. Even Hitler and Mousolini knew to keep looking behind their shoulders before they became so full of themselves and ended up strung by their heels.
"It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent." -Gandhi

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Hope Foxconn is serious about Tucson, they would be a nice addition to the state's economy. If Apple and Foxconn made a decision to move operations to the US I agree it would impact the Chinese economy.

TT mentioned that iPhone parts are made in different locations, but they all come back to Foxconn and Pegatron in China for assembly.
https://gesrepair.com/where-are-iphones ... 0Pegatron.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Apple once again is aiding the Chinese Communist Party against protesters.
Apple Inc. has limited the AirDrop wireless file-sharing feature on iPhones in China after the mechanism was used by protesters to spread images to other iPhone owners. AirDrop allows the quick exchange of files like images, documents or videos between Apple devices. The latest version -- iOS 16.1.1, released Wednesday -- caps the window in which users can receive files from non-contacts at 10 minutes. The previous options didn’t limit the time involved. Users could choose to get files from everyone, no one or just their contacts. After the 10-minute period expires, the system reverts to the mode where files can only be received from contacts. That means that individuals won’t be able to get an AirDrop transfer from a stranger without actively turning on the feature in the preceding few minutes. It makes it harder for anyone seeking to distribute content and reach people in a discreet manner.

Apple made the change to AirDrop on iPhones sold in China. The shift came after protesters in the country used the service to spread posters opposing Xi Jinping and the Chinese government. The use of AirDrop to sidestep China’s strict online censorship has been well-documented over the past three years and was highlighted again recently. Apple didn’t comment on why the change was introduced in China, but said that it plans to roll out the new AirDrop setting globally in the coming year. The idea is to mitigate unwanted file sharing, the company said. But the Cupertino, California-based tech giant has been criticized in the past for making changes to iPhone features to appease the Chinese government. In one example, the iPhone maker took heat in 2019 for hiding the Taiwanese flag emoji for users in Hong Kong or Macau. It also removed apps for virtual private networks, or VPNs, which are commonly used to circumvent the country’s internet firewall. Many of Apple’s own services are also inaccessible in China -- the world’s biggest smartphone market -- including Apple TV+, the iTunes Store, paid podcasts, Apple Books and Apple Arcade.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... s-in-china

In 2019 Apple removed an app from the Apple Store that Hong Kong protesters were using to communicate with each other.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/10/76884186 ... protesters
Last edited by highdesert on Wed Nov 30, 2022 11:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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It appears that some COVID restrictions are being relaxed.
Zhou Fengsuo was a Tiananmen Square protester who was jailed in China for a year. He said he thinks Xi's willingness to roll back zero-COVID measures is a sign of weakness. Zhou said he was in tears watching young protesters take to the streets to voice their anger. A man who helped organize the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and survived the Chinese government's brutal crackdown says Chinese President Xi Jinping is showing a "rare display of weakness."

Zhou Fengsuo told Newsweek that Xi's willingness to walk back on elements of his zero-COVID policy signals that he is not infallible. Zhou, a Tsinghua University student protester, was imprisoned by the Chinese government and sent to a re-education camp for his role in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. "It's hard to predict the outcome of the protests now. But we are already seeing some loosening of the zero-COVID policy, which is a rare display of weakness for Xi Jinping," Zhou told Newsweek.
Zhou was allowed to leave the country in 1995 and now lives in New York, per his Twitter account. Zhou told Newsweek that amid the continuing protests, Xi's hold over the Communist Party appears to remain absolute. "Xi Jinping still has complete control within the CCP. But his tight control also means that the system can't deal with surprises because his underlings aren't willing to take initiatives without explicit instructions from Xi," Zhou said.

"Additionally, the zero-COVID system is exhausted already. But at this stage, he is still entrenched," Zhou added. Some COVID restrictions have been lifted in Guangzhou and Chongqing following widespread protests in every major Chinese city, including its capital, Beijing. At these protests, people were seen carrying sheets of blank paper — a new symbol of defiance against the government. And while many of the protests appeared to have quietened down over the weekend, there were still clashes between protesters and the police in Guangzhou on Tuesday night.
https://news.yahoo.com/student-leader-s ... 00354.html

Andy H had a good video interview awhile back with a US general talking about how US officers are empowered to make battlefield decisions. Russia and China still operate in top-down environments, decision making is centralized and underlings only obey orders, they aren't empowered to make their own decisions.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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highdesert wrote: Thu Dec 01, 2022 11:42 am Andy H had a good video interview awhile back with a US general talking about how US officers are empowered to make battlefield decisions. Russia and China still operate in top-down environments, decision making is centralized and underlings only obey orders, they aren't empowered to make their own decisions.
That’s how thing work in an authoritarian state.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.-Huxley
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis Brandeis,

Re: Riots in Chinese cities over COVID lockdowns.

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Big Brother CCP was watching the protestors all along, probably due to technology they got from the US or some Western country.

How China’s Police Used Phones and Faces to Track Protesters
https://archive.ph/jYTaZ
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/busi ... lance.html

Protesters should devise a system they could use to track CCP officials and the military and leak their contacts and illicit affairs to Western news media. Like all authoritarian systems it's corrupt, they need to uncover all the corruption.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." - Daniel Patrick Moynihan

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