China’s Infamous Great Firewall has Cracked

Last week’s street rallies against China’s draconian zero-COVID regulations stunned watchers across the globe and some even dubbed it the nation’s largest rebellion since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989. However, censorship specialists in China were as enthralled by the online criticism. After all, Chinese authorities and internet service providers have been using swarms of censorship staff for years to monitor and remove social media content that contradicts the rigid state media narratives of the government. AI and machine learning have raised the level of sophistication of this dissent-stifling apparatus.
 
So when many WeChat users saw some of their contacts post sharp criticisms of the nation’s recently intensified pandemic lockdowns, nucleic acid test mandates, shady quarantine facilities, and more, they were left to wonder how such content got through. WeChat is China’s “everything app” for messaging, online payments, social media, and more.
 
One such post from late November had a list of six requests that included, but went well beyond, substituting “professional medical research-based solutions” for “unreasonable and unlawful zero-case regulations.” It also demanded an apology for the recent fire victims in Urumqi, Xinjiang, who were primarily Uyghur and are said to have perished as a result of a rigid lockdown that prevented both them from fleeing and firefighters from getting close enough to save them. That has drawn attention because China is sensitive to criticism of its treatment of Uyghurs, which has been referred to as a genocide by some, including a spokesperson for then-President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign in the United States.
 
According to Manfred Elfstrom, an assistant professor of political science at the University of British Columbia, “I was startled by how forthright online critics were in their comments when I first observed netizens fighting back against these [zero-COVID] regulations.” “I was particularly moved by the sympathy and support so many people had for the people of Urumqi.”
Last week, other users complained about how films of Chinese COVID-19 quarantine facilities were crowded, inefficiently heated, and littered with trash. They are suitable for housing only cattle, according to one internet user.
The fact that those posts remained on the WeChat Moments page for days in late November and early December—some of which are still there today—was even more surprising than the posts themselves.
 
The COVID-19 testing programme throughout the nation was harshly condemned in a flurry of fresh blogs that appeared the following weekend. Videos of a cartoon character with redubbed dialogue about being unable to enter buildings because he could not access COVID-19 test kiosks—which had shut down or were overrun by long lines—were among the most well-liked. This was due to Beijing’s recent chilly weather, which made it difficult for people to access the kiosks.
 
One interviewee from Yunnan province, who requested anonymity out of concern for reprisals from the authorities, was one of the internet users who posted the list of six demands. She responded, “The zero-COVID policy is too stupid,” when questioned her about why she chose to challenge China’s repressive measures against dissent.
She then cited the Urumqi fire as well as the September bus tragedy in Guizhou that killed 27 people while they were en route to a quarantine facility. This past fall, the episode sparked a number of vehement remarks, mostly on Weibo, a microblogging site in China. However, such outcries pale in contrast to the current groundswell on several Chinese social media platforms, such as WeChat Moments and Douyin (the Chinese version of short video sharing platform TikTok).
Along with the deaths in Guiyang and Urumqi, Dou expresses her outrage at how prolonged lockdowns and other restrictions have led to “an increasing number of people choosing suicide because they are unable to support themselves financially and maintain their lives.
 
All of it is clear to individuals on the ground, like Dou, as well as to observers of China from other countries. The unpredictability and randomness of the COVID strategy startled Anthony J. Saich, director of the Rajawali Foundation Institute for Asia at the Harvard Kennedy School, who claims that social media posts like Dou’s “tapped into a broad sense of discontent across numerous locations.” Social media enabled the protests to embrace similar themes and concerns as the Xinjiang fire served as the impetus for supportive rallies in other places. The fact that they were posted is more surprising than the contents. Chinese citizens have woken up and are fighting back against the tyranny of the CCP.