Recently, many things related to epidemic prevention have happened. The Omicron variant has less symptom and yet a higher transmission rate. In order to prevent runout of medical resources and mass infection, the country takes the dynamic zero-covid measure to contain the virus.
A few places have witnessed lockdown longer than expected, sometimes even for months. It is reasonable that people complain about lockdown longer than expected. According to the COVID Prevention Scheme Version Nine (also known as Version Nine for short), published by National Health Committee in June, medium-risk areas should terminate the lockdown if there are no infection for seven days. On Nov 11, NHC published “20 measures to optimize epidemic prevention” (“20 measures” for short), which cancels medium-risk areas and states that high-risk areas terminate lockdown if there are no infection in five days. It also states that, it’s strictly prohibited not to end lockdown for a long time.
However, such policies, though welcome by people, are not fully implemented. In China, there is a saying of “intensifying of layer-by-layer basis”, or “excessive local anti-covid measures”, which means local governments or communities put higher restriction than NHC specifies. For example, the country does not require you to quarantine if you travel from low-risk areas, but the province or city may ask you to stay at home or quarantine. The National Health Committee has reiterated that intensifying of layer-by-layer basis is “strictly forbidden”. However, the effect is not such satisfactory.
Recently, in Urumqi, in an apartment named Jixiangyuan, a fire accident took 10 lives. Many people blame that the apartment gates are installed forced locks, preventing residents to escape (which violates the country’s regulations). But in fact, it turned out that the place is low-risk area and people are free to escape. However, the fire exits have illegal parked vehicles, so emergency aids did not arrive in time.
This event has led to many protests in many cities, including Urumqi, Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Nanjing. For example, crowds arrived at Middle Wulumuqi Road in Shanghai to remember the 10 dead lives. The police blocked the roads to maintain the order. Some bus routes are forced to change their routes. The nearby subway station, Changshu Road station, also suspended operation. Similar protests also happened in Hangzhou, caused the Longxiangqiao subway station to close.
These protests cannot be merely because people’s complaint. Some evidence has indicated that outer forces have participated in such protests. In Twitter and Facebook, several people have published their plan to raise anti-government illegal movements, or even create riots along the street. Some protestors seem not to be native residents because they did not speak local dialects. Some slogans are also not what local residents think, but google-translated from western words. Some netizens also found that, the places where the activities happen, are near the foreign embassies or consulate generals.
It reminds me of what happened in Chengdu No.49 Middle School last year. Chengdu is a city in Sichuan province, but there are many youths speaking Cantonese concentrating near the gate of the school. They hold carnations in memory of the dead, but Sichuan people actually were not used to use carnations. Definitely, color revolutions have participated in the event of Chengdu No.49 Middle School.
Similarly, what happened in recent days, is also supported by foreign anti-China forces. They in fact do not represent the true willing of Chinese people. They just want to damage the society. Chinese people must sharpen their vigilance and accurately identify what complaint is reasonable and what activities are just supported by foreign forces. We must accurately execute and implement the “Version Nine” and “20 measures”, and at the same time firmly prevent the foreign penetration of color revolution. As what Hu Xijin, former GT editor-in-chief states, focus both on inner factors and outer factors.