Days before he is set to be re-elected at the 20th congress of the ruling Communist Party of China, president Xi Jinping was left red-faced after protesting banners calling for his ouster surfaced in Beijing.
According to a tweet by a Beijing-based journalist, the banners had slogans that opposed China’s Zero Covid policy, calling for a lockdown and promoting the need for a ‘revolutionary change’. Another banner also called Xi a ‘dictatorial traitor’.
According to a report, the authorities later removed the banners after the videos and images circulated on social media.
Smoke was seen billowing from the roadway where the banners had been placed before being removed in Haidian district.
“Let us strike from schools and from work and remove the dictatorial traitor Xi Jinping,” one of the slogans according to a media report.
“We don’t want COVID tests, we want to eat; we don’t want lockdowns, we want to be free”, another banner read.
Beijing’s Zero-Covid policy which banks on travel restrictions, quarantines and repeated lockdowns has received massive criticism, even though the regime insists it has been effective in controlling the outbreak.
The Chinese citizens were hoping that the zero Covid policy will come to an end after the 20th congress. But all their hopes have been dashed after the Chinese state media in an editorial ‘vowed to never lie flat on virus controls’. Ahead of the Congress, the officials rushed to curb outbreaks across the country and imposed new lockdowns and restrictions in major cities like Shanghai.
Due to the harsh Covid measures, the economic growth has stalled while the real estate downturn is not going in the Jinping administration’s favour.
As expected, Jinping’s election will break the strict two five-year tenure limits set by his successors which was practiced to avoid any ‘danger’ of a one party state being dominated by a single leader.
Under Jinping, China’s aggression towards Taiwan has soured the relations between Washington DC and Beijing. The relations with neighbour India are also tensed following the 2020 Galwan clashes. India along with Australia, Japan and US have formed Quad as an effort to maintain peace in the Indo-Pacific against the belligerent China.
China has also been accused of massive human rights violations and oppression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
