BEIJING — Students protested a lockdown at a
university in eastern
China, highlighting continued anger as huge numbers of
people across the country still face restrictions despite the government easing
its zero-COVID policy.
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Some Chinese cities have begun tentatively rolling
back mass testing and curbs on movement following nationwide anti-lockdown
demonstrations last week.
But analysts at Japanese firm Nomura on Monday
calculated that 53 cities — home to nearly a third of China’s population —
still had some restrictions in place.
China’s vast security apparatus has moved swiftly to
smother the rallies, deploying a heavy police presence while boosting online
censorship and surveillance.
Videos published on social media Tuesday and
geolocated by AFP show a crowd of students at Nanjing Tech University on Monday
night shouting demands to leave the campus.
“Your power is given to you by students, not by
yourselves,” one person can be heard shouting in the footage. “Serve the
students!”
A third-year student who asked to remain anonymous
confirmed the protest took place, a day after the school announced it would
seal off the campus for five days because of just one COVID case.
Chinese universities have restricted movement for
months, with many requiring students to apply for permission to leave the
campus and banning visitors.
The Nanjing Tech student told AFP her peers were
unhappy about poor communication from the university and worried they would be
blocked from travelling home for the winter holidays.
In the footage, the crowd can be seen arguing with
university representatives and shouting for school leaders to step down.
“If you touch us you will become the second
Foxconn!” one protester yells in reference to violent demonstrations last month
in central China at a factory run by the Taiwanese tech giant that supplies
Apple.
Other clips showed a police car arriving on the
scene and university officials promising students they would compile their
complaints in a file.
The Nanjing protest comes days after people took to
the streets in multiple Chinese cities urging an end to the zero-COVID policy,
with some even calling for
Chinese President Xi Jinping to step down.
Hundreds gathered at Beijing’s elite Tsinghua and
Peking universities at the end of last month as well as on campuses in the
cities of Xi’an, Guangzhou and Wuhan.
Tentative easing
Authorities have cracked
down on subsequent efforts to protest while appearing to answer some demands by
easing a number of restrictions.
On Tuesday Beijing said offices and commercial
buildings including supermarkets would no longer require visitors to show proof
of a negative test.
Major businesses and organizers of large-scale
events will be allowed to devise their own testing requirements, authorities
said.
Xie Shangguang, a 22-year-old student in Beijing,
welcomed the changes as “good news” and told AFP he felt the capital was
“coming back to life”.
“I have the impression that it will gradually ease
up,” he said. “You can’t let everything go at once, or block everything at
once, you have to proceed step by step.”
Another Beijing resident, 28-year-old Wu Siqi, also
said the loosening should be incremental.
“You can’t just suddenly tell people they don’t need
to do anything,” she said.
A host of other cities including
Shanghai have
dialed down mass testing mandates in recent days.
In the southern
city of Guangzhou, officials began telling people to stay home if they have
symptoms — a sharp about-turn from the previous approach of dragging all
positive cases to central quarantine facilities.
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