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Eight Things Freedom House Has Learned About Protests in China [1]

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Date: 2024-12

Despite increasingly repressive efforts to prevent free expression under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), dissent in China occurs regularly. Issue 8 of the China Dissent Monitor (CDM), released last week, marked two years of Freedom House’s efforts to monitor these protests. With 6,400 events logged, CDM’s second anniversary is a good occasion to reflect on what we’ve learned about who is protesting in China, what it looks like, where it’s happening, and how often. Here are eight key takeaways.

1. Dissent occurs regularly. Despite the systems of surveillance and suppression the CCP has constructed to maintain “social stability,” CDM’s database bears out the reality that dissent in China occurs regularly. The 6,400 cases we’ve documented is very likely an undercount, with some previous academic research suggesting that there could be tens of thousands of events annually. Protest events are geographically widespread, linked to 500 prefecture-level cities across every region in China.

2. In-person protests take many forms. Street demonstrations constitute many of the events in CDM’s database, but we have also documented protests banners and graffiti, strikes, occupations, artistic protests, hunger strikes, contentious lawsuits or petitioning, and expression of dissent through the practice of religious beliefs. For some religious groups, ethnic minorities, and LGBT+ communities, even semiprivate gatherings can constitute dissent and often trigger intervention from the government.

3. Economic issues play a major role. Three-quarters of protest events in the database involve citizens with economic claims, such as workers demanding unpaid wages, home buyers protesting developers’ failure to complete home construction on schedule, retirees demanding benefits, and rural residents whose land has been confiscated. While these grievances are linked to specific livelihood needs, the protests are not without political meaning. The government is the target in one-fifth of economic protests, and some form of repression was evident in 23 percent. The state is concerned that even localized protests or those against companies could grow into broader criticisms of the government or its policies. For example, in May 2024, when police suppressed villagers in Yunnan Province who were protesting inadequate compensation for land confiscation, demonstrators shouted, “Xi Jinping’s gang is beating people up.”

4. Dissent over anything can evoke state repression. CDM has documented repression in more than a third of cases. Large-scale protests, complaints about the central government, and protests that involve political rights are most likely to result in repression. But, we found that protesting nearly any issue can result in state suppression. It is the act of citizens engaging in organized public dissent that the CCP perceives as a latent political threat.

5. Ethnic minorities dissent, despite stringent restrictions. The CCP makes an extra effort to suppress and surveil expression by certain ethnic minority groups. It seeks to “Sinicize” their identities by working to make their cultural practices more like those of the majority Han Chinese, and to force them to adhere to CCP political values. This means that their cultural activities can be treated as contentious. CDM has documented 145 dissent events by Tibetans, Mongolians, and Uyghurs in China over issues such as violations of cultural rights and expression, religious practice, agricultural and land rights, and abuse of power. More than half of these acts were carried out online, driven in part by severe limits on offline behavior.

6. Online dissent is widespread, but highly censored and deamplified. Dissent in China’s cyberspace is much more frequent than offline protest. While the CCP maintains the most comprehensive system of online censorship in the world, it remains unable to completely prevent all expressions of dissent online. Instead, it focuses on lowering the visibility of dissent by censoring it before it goes viral and requiring that algorithms do not amplify such content. CDM analysis suggests that long-term systematic restrictions have encouraged heavy self-censorship among accounts with large audiences. As a result, much online dissent exists in low-visibility locations, such as obscure posts or buried in comments sections.

7. Protest movements have been hindered, but not stopped. Fearing the possibility of a sustained protest movement across China, the CCP, especially during Xi Jinping’s era, has shuttered civic organizations that could act as organizational nerve centers. So it is significant that at least 267 cases in CDM’s database have a link to a larger movement. Instead of being coordinated directly, though, individual participants connect their actions through shared symbolism. One example is the aftermath of the Sitong Bridge protest, in which Peng Lifa wrote criticism of stringent COVID-19 restrictions and of authoritarianism on large banners he hung on the bridge. CDM has since documented at least 12 instances where protesters in China used the same language.

8. Citizens are winning concessions. In 218 cases, protesters have secured some type of concession, such as the government intervening in a dispute or opening an investigation, a company issuing a response, policy changes, and payment of wage arrears. While this is only a small percent of all dissent events in CDM’s database, it is likely an undercount, as concessions often occur after a protest ends and are not usually announced. The most consequential concession was the central government abruptly ending its Zero COVID-19 policy. CDM documented 216 protests against the policy in 2022, and analysis indicates that these events became increasingly frequent over several months before peaking late that November. A week later, the National Health Commission effectively ended Zero COVID, a policy championed by Xi Jinping himself. That grassroots action can secure concessions demonstrates another reason why citizens engage in public dissent despite the risk of repression.

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[1] Url: https://freedomhouse.org/article/eight-things-freedom-house-has-learned-about-protests-china

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