Growing unrest accompanies Xi Jinping’s 3rd term unveiling
By Deepa Kaushiki
New Delhi, October 15: China is gripped with unrest, speculation and rumour as President Xi Jinping gives himself the record third term next week during the 20th Chinese Communist Congress Party (CCP). The world is keeping an eagle eye on the growing restive population facing unprecedented crackdown by Xi regime.
Recently, a few activists in China started protest ahead of CCP meeting that is scheduled to begin from October 16. Xi will take a third term. The censors of Chinese social media has prohibited content, keywords, and hashtag where netizens were denouncing Xi’s third term. The protest involved several banners draped across Sitong Bridge referring “Oust the Dictator, Traitor Xi Jinping?”
Meanwhile, another banner highlighted the variety of complaints, some of which were directed at the China’s Zero Covid Policy, “No PCR test, but food, No lockdown but freedom, No lie by dignity, No political revolution but reforms, No dictator but vote, Not to be slave but to be citizens.”
Though the banners were soon taken down on the same day, many internet users by then had already shared the photographs. According to the reports, Peng Lifa aka Peng ZaiZhou hung banners requesting the impeachment of Xi, asking for most basic human right, right to vote. However, he was immediately arrested. But the comments from the netizens seen by RFA on the Peng Zaizhou accounts reads, “You are a hero, I respect you,” and “I hope you reach home safe”.
Further, the swift censor by the Chinese authorities regards to the post did not able to stop the trending hashtags includes, #Haidian, #Sitong Bridge, and even #Beijing. On China’s Weibo site, which is similar to Twitter, people started using the hashtag #iSawIt to communicate after the censorship. But those were also taken away, and other people claimed that their accounts had been barred forever. Further, Weibo is displaying a warning that read, “According to the applicable laws and regulations, the topic page cannot be shown,” when you search for the hashtag #ISawIt. On Thursday before the banner appeared, the Peng Zaizhou Twitter account filled with the comments saying, “Tell dictator Xi Jinping that there are still some men left in China who walk on the path to freedom.”
Notably, during the military assault on weeks of large-scale rallies in Tiananmen Square (1989), prominent student protest leader Wang Dan referred to the demonstrator as “the new Tank Man” by comparing him to the lone shopper who fought off a column of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tanks. He went further by saying “this isn’t the first time someone has come forward, and it won’t be the last … Xi’s rebellious actions are sure to spark more political agitation”.
Historically, persecuting and abusing political prisoners of conscience has a long and horrible history under the CCP. It goes without saying that Peng Zaizhou will not be an exception, especially at this specific moment when Xi, the CCP and Chinese government’s ruler, is running for a third five-year term. Xi, who is moulding himself as super leader of China, does not seems good for China’s as well as world future. Like Mao, Xi has become a Red Emperor, though with even more people, a total 1.4 billion people are subject to his every whim. And, like Mao, he is surrounded by sycophants, suspicious of criticism, protected by enforcers, shielded from reality, and absolved from accountability.
(Author is a researcher with Public Policy Research Centre)
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