Lessons from a Chinese protest
On the streets of Beijing with youngsters angry at covid lockdowns
Under a road bridge in central Beijing, just before two o’clock in the morning on November 28th, one of that city’s most powerful men came face to face with youngsters driven to despair by China’s harsh “zero-covid” controls. The brief meeting was revealing in several ways. It offered a glimpse of the security machine built by China’s supreme leader, President Xi Jinping, and the Communist Party’s confidence in it. On the protesters’ side, it showed how, in today’s China, youthful idealism is tempered by a sober understanding of the party’s might.
This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Lessons from a protest”
From the December 3rd 2022 edition
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