Photo/Illutration Protesters hold up blank sheets of white paper to protest the Chinese authorities’ zero-COVID policy and restraints on freedom of expression in central Beijing on Nov. 27. (Nozomu Hayashi)

BEIJING--Defiance against the Chinese government’s zero-COVID strategy is escalating in many parts of China, with some protesters even publicly calling for top leader Xi Jinping to resign.

It is a rare and astonishing development for a nation that harshly clamps down on protests and any criticism leveled against the ruling regime.

Observers said the tumult could further deepen if Chinese leadership mishandles the protests, given the pent-up frustrations among the population over longtime COVID-19 restrictions imposed on the people's daily lives.

The protests were partly triggered by a fire in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region in China’s far west, that left 10 people dead on Nov. 24.

Local authorities called an emergency news conference to deny allegations that spread on the internet that the number of deaths grew because fire trucks could not reach the apartment building due to a COVID lockdown.

Videos posted on Chinese social media show dozens of protesters on the Urumqi road in Shanghai before dawn on Nov. 27 openly denouncing Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.

“Xi Jinping, step down!” protesters called out. “Communist Party, step down!”

The rally was originally held to mourn the victims of the fire in Urumqi.

One woman said she saw authorities detain some of the protesters.

“People are taking to the streets across China,” she said. “We are at the end of our rope.”

Hundreds of residents showed up to protest on the same road on the night of Nov. 27 as well--many of them young people.

Demonstrators went through sporadic rounds of pushing and shoving with police after officers arrived on the scene to remove them by sealing off the neighborhood.

Some citizens shouted, “Govern the country with the rule of law!”

Hundreds of students rallied at Tsinghua University, an elite university in Beijing and Xi’s alma mater, on the afternoon of Nov. 27.

In a video that went viral, a student in tears said that she “will regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t speak up now.”

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A video on social media shows a rally held at elite Tsinghua University in Beijing, Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s alma mater, on Nov. 27. (From Twitter)

According to school officials, students were upset about the authorities’ strict control of speech that did not even allow for a gathering to mourn the fire victims. The students also resented being locked up on campus for a prolonged period under the Chinese government’s zero-tolerance policy for COVID-19.

On the night of Nov. 27, more than 100 residents flocked to the Liangma bridge in the capital, which is close to an area where many foreign embassies and U.N. organizations are located.

They held up blank sheets of white paper in protest, a symbolic gesture denouncing the authorities for denying them freedom of expression.

Many protesters who took to the streets over the Urumqi fire have now taken to holding up sheets of white paper.

In Nanjing in Jiangsu province, just north of Shanghai, hundreds of students held a similar rally on Nov. 26 at the Communication University of China, Nanjing.

Posts on social media suggest the protests are spreading to numerous other parts of China as well.

(This story was written by Ryo Inoue in Shanghai and Nozomu Hayashi in Beijing.)

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