Chinese authorities have tightly censored discussion of a rare protest in Beijing on Thursday in which large banners were unfurled on an overpass calling for boycotts and the removal of Xi Jinping, just days before China’s biggest event of the year. its five-year political cycle.
Photos and videos of the Sitong Bridge protest emerged on social media late Thursday, also showing plumes of smoke billowing from the bridge over a major thoroughfare in the capital’s Haidian district.
“We want food, not PCR tests. We want freedom, not confinements. We want respect, not lies. We want reform, not a Cultural Revolution. We want a vote, not a leader. We want to be citizens, not slaves,” read one banner, while a second called for school boycotts, strikes and Xi’s impeachment.
The photos quickly spread on Western social media, but were quickly removed from platforms behind China’s “Great Firewall” of the Internet. Posts containing the words “Beijing,” “bridge” or “Haidian” were strictly monitored, and a song that shared the bridge’s name was pulled from streaming services, according to the Associated Press.
On Twitter, some users said their accounts had been temporarily disabled on another major Chinese platform, WeChat, after sharing photos of the protest.
However, such a rare protest at a time of extreme political sensitivity drew attention. By Friday morning, a “I saw it” hashtag, where people were referring to the incident without referencing it, had been viewed more than 180,000 times before it was also deleted.
“I saw it, we all saw it,” one post said.
A reply asking what the hashtag was referring to was answered by a user who said “go search on twitter bro if you search for a certain capital you can find everything”.
Other commentators referenced the Les Miserables song Do you hear the people sing?, which was briefly censored in 2019 after it became a popular protest song in Hong Kong.
Many comments alluded to a revolutionary saying made famous by Mao Zedong: “A small spark can set the prairie on fire.”
“#Suddenly I feel less anxious# when I saw someone acting like a moth extinguishing a fire and sacrificing his life for righteousness,” one of them added to the Maoist metaphor.
“One makes it worse by trying to cover up,” added another.
Some internet users claimed to have identified the protester, including Chinese dissident and former CCP member Cai Xia, who posted screenshots on his Twitter purporting to be the protester’s deleted tweets from days ago.
Fang Zhouzi, a US-based Chinese science writer, said the same slogans displayed on the bridge had been posted days earlier on his ResearchGate account by the man believed to be the protester. Fang said the posts had since been deleted, speculating that police had done so after arresting him.
“It’s good to know your identity, at least it won’t evaporate from the world,” he said.
Such an open and publicized protest against Xi specifically would be significant at the best of times, but this happened just days before the Communist Party congress. Thousands of political delegates have descended on Beijing for a week of closed-door meetings and highly choreographed political talks that are expected to re-nominate Xi for an unprecedented third term and further cement his power as the country’s authoritarian leader. the china
The actual protest appeared to be quickly called off Thursday afternoon. Shortly after the photos appeared online, there were no banners hanging from the driveway. A circular black scar was visible on the shoulder area where the fire would have been, and there was a heavy police presence, according to reporters at the scene.
Officers entered the stores and stopped pedestrians for questioning. Associated Press reporters were questioned three times and asked to produce identification. Police denied anything unusual had happened in the area.
Additional reports from Chi Hui Lin and agencies