Chinese demonstrators against the government’s “covid zero” policy have resorted to their imaginations and invented symbols such as the blank sheet of paper to denounce censorship or clever puns to demand the resignation of President Xi Jinping.
Demonstrators in several cities, including Beijing, displayed A4 sheets of blank paper on Sunday as a sign of solidarity and indictment of China’s lack of freedom of expression. Others posted whiteboards on their WeChat profiles.
CHENGDU – Protesters symbolically hold up blank sheets of white paper as protests grow across Chinapic.twitter.com/vRMNDNMdjs
– Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) November 27, 2022
Photos of students of the famous Chinese Tsinghua University circulate on the networks, with posters showing Friedmann’s equations, chosen for the similarity between the physicist’s name and the phrase “liberated man” or “freedom” (freedom).
Students from the elite school of Tsinghua University protested Friedmann’s comparison. I have no idea what this equation means, but it doesn’t matter.
It is the pronunciation: it is similar to “free man” (free man) – a spectacular and creative way of expressing, with intelligence. pic.twitter.com/m5zomeTRPF– Nathan Law (@nathanlawkc) November 27, 2022
This Monday, many publications referring to the blank sheets were removed, although similar publications continue to circulate.
Social media users also resorted to elaborate puns to talk about the protests, using terms such as “banana peel”, which has the same initials as President Xi Jinping’s name in Chinese, and “shrimp mousse”, which resembles the phrase “resignation”.
Sarcasm
Over the weekend, some protesters explicitly called for Xi’s resignation and chanted slogans such as “No to Covid testing, yes to freedom,” referring to a banner put up by a protester in Beijing shortly before the Communist Party Congress in October.
Others, more cautiously, pay their respects with flowers and candles to the victims of a deadly fire in Xinjiang last week that sparked outrage.
In Beijing, a crowd gathered along the Liangma River on Sunday night and chanted “I want to get tested for covid! I want to scan the QR code for my health!”, inspiring Weibo users to post similar sarcastic phrases.
Videos of Xi, as well as statements made by him, have been edited to support the mass demonstrations, including one where he says, “Now the Chinese people are organized and you can’t play with them.”
music and football
In several places in China, groups sang the national anthem and the Internationale, anticipating accusations from authorities that the protests were unpatriotic or provoked by foreign troops.
A video quickly removed by censors showed students in a student dormitory singing the song by Cantonese pop group Beyond, Boundless oceans, vast skiesa song about freedom that was also embraced by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong at the start of the pandemic.
Students sing a rendition of Beyond’s ‘Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies’ at Guangzhou University. pic.twitter.com/6f8x8xhbGN
-Carl Benjaminsen (@CarlBenjaminsen) November 28, 2022
Memes were also released about the World Cup in Qatar, with images of fans without a mask.
Breaking the “Great Wall””
Social networks such as Twitter and Instagram are blocked in China by the “Great Firewall”, a system that censors the internet, but some tech-savvy citizens are able to post information about the protests using a software-dedicated virtual private network (VPN).
To spread the message beyond China’s borders, anonymous Twitter accounts receive videos uploaded from across the country, while multiple live streams of the protests are hosted on Instagram.
Overseas Chinese students have staged similar demonstrations around the world, including in several US and European cities.
Just in: A group of Chinese outside the Chinese consulate in Los Angeles stood in solidarity with mainland Chinese protesters, chanting, “Down with the Chinese Communist Party! Xi Jinping resigns!”pic.twitter.com/AOLB9pY8Wz
– Inty (@__Inty__) November 28, 2022
In an Instagram video geolocated by the AFP, protesters chant and place a banner in front of the Chinese consulate in Toronto with the phrase “Urumqi Street”, the name of a street in Shanghai where protesters gathered after the Urumqi fire.
Source: DN
