Photo/Illutration Residents hold up flowers to commemorate victims of a recent Urumqi deadly fire in Central in Hong Kong, Nov. 28, 2022. (AP Photo)

HONg KONG--Protests against China’s strict zero-COVID policy and restrictions on freedoms have spread to at least a dozen cities around the world in a show of solidarity with rare displays of defiance in China over the weekend.

Small-scale vigils and protests have been held in cities in Europe, Asia and North America, including London, Paris, Tokyo and Sydney, according to a Reuters tally, organized by expatriate dissidents and students.

Dozens of people attended most of the protests with a few drawing more than 100, the tally showed.

The gatherings are a rare instance of Chinese at home and abroad uniting in anger.

The protests on the mainland were triggered by a deadly fire in China’s Xinjiang region last week that killed 10 people who became trapped in their apartments, in a disaster blamed in part on lockdown measures. City officials denied that.

Since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago, authorities have clamped down hard on dissent, tightening controls on civil society, the media and the internet.

But the strict policy aimed at stamping out COVID with lockdowns and quarantine has become a lightning rod for frustrations.

The policy has kept China’s death much lower than many other countries but it has come at a cost of long spells of confinement at home for many millions and damage to the world’s second-biggest economy.

Nevertheless, Chinese officials say it must be maintained to save lives, especially among the elderly given their low vaccination rates.

Some overseas protesters said it was their turn to take on some of the burden their friends and family had been enduring.

“It’s what I should do. When I saw so many Chinese citizens and students take to the streets, my feeling is they have shouldered so much more than we have,” said graduate student Chiang Seeta, one of the organizers of a demonstration in Paris on Sunday that drew about 200 people.

“We’re now showing support for them from abroad,” said Chiang.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular briefing on Monday that China was not aware of any protests abroad calling for an end to the zero-COVID policy.

Asked about the protests at home, the spokesperson said the question did not “reflect what actually happened” and said China believed the fight against COVID would be successful with the leadership of the party and the cooperation of the people.

BLAME

It has been common in recent years for overseas Chinese students to rally in support of their government against its critics but anti-government protests have been rare.

Outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris, some protesters brought flowers and lit candles for those killed in the Xinjiang fire.

Some blamed President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party and demanded their removal from office.

Defiance towards Xi has become increasingly public after a dissident hung a banner on a Beijing bridge last month ahead of a Communist Party Congress, criticizing Xi for clinging to power and the zero-COVID policy.

About 90 people gathered at Shinjuku, one of Tokyo’s busiest train stations, on Sunday, among them a university student from Beijing who said any protests in China against COVID rules would inevitably focus blame on the Communist Party.

“At the core of it is China’s system,” said the student, who asked to be identified as just Emmanuel.

But some protesters were uncomfortable with more belligerent slogans.

An organizer of a protest planned for later on Monday at Columbia University in New York, who asked to be identified as Shawn, said she would steer clear of sensitive issues such as calls for Taiwan independence and China’s mass internment of ethnic Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

“We have spoken to some activists from Taiwan and Xinjiang ... We’ve agreed to refrain from (that),” said Shawn from the Chinese city of Fuzhou.

“We know that may alienate a lot of people.”

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