Armored cities in China, as protests continue

defends the 'zero tolerance' line

to

and locks down cities with

after the anti-lockdown protests that have spread throughout the country.

In parallel, it announces a new plan to

to increase coverage among the elderly, starting with the part of the population over

In the midst of the demonstrations, in the weekly press conference, the Chinese National Health Commission reported its intention to strengthen protection even among people aged

.

Local officials, in particular, are asked to take responsibility for convincing the elderly to undergo vaccines, in a management that will be supported by

On the demonstrations, the spokesman for

then assured that the "

and the support of the Chinese people, accusing "forces with ulterior motives" of linking the 10 victims in the fire that broke out last week in Urumqi to the draconian anti-virus measures that would have slowed down the relief efforts.

Starting in

the demonstrations are turning into the toughest test for the Chinese leadership and for Xi himself since he came to power in 2012. Social outrage has mixed with deep-seated fear of the virus and in Shanghai i Protesters over the weekend openly called for the CCP and Xi himself for the first time to step back, along with greater freedom.

The

area of ​​the city, the epicenter of the protests, was

to avoid further turbulence after what was recorded in 16 cities over the weekend, according to CNN calculations.

The blank sheets, which have become the symbol of the revolt, have however still appeared in individual and widespread initiatives in the country, to the point of becoming proof of sharing the unease on social media, even in Mandarin.

A relaxation of 'zero tolerance' was expected after the Communist Party Congress in mid-October which gave President Xi an unprecedented third term in a row at the general secretariat.

The new bet of

is that China could

, with some chance of a "messy" exit, said Hui Shan, China's chief economist at the US investment bank: a turnaround in the second quarter has the highest probability to occur, equal to about 60%.

A prediction that is by no means said to be enough to appease the widespread frustration against a policy that from a model for the fight against Covid has become an undeniable cause of global embarrassment for Xi himself.

Manifestations obscured

On the internet, however, an avalanche of

showing porn content, ads for escorts and gambling are overshadowing the

of the Chinese.

The wave of these 'bot' contents, i.e. made automatically by some profiles allegedly linked to the government, coincides with an unprecedented wave of protests that has been sweeping through the main cities of the country in recent days.

This is the alarm raised by the

, which conducted an analysis: it estimates, for example, that over 95% of tweets with the search term 'Beijing' come from spam accounts that spread information of this type.

Messages that far outnumber any protest tweet.

Due to Chinese censorship,

to access Internet services and social media such as

, so much so that - as reported by the TechCrunch site - Twitter has leapt among the most downloaded apps in recent days.

But the amount of spam makes it more difficult to find legitimate and useful information about the protests, and it also impacts users outside of China who are trying to get on the ground information about the events.

The wave of spam on Twitter coincides with the multiple layoffs initiated by Elon Musk after the purchase of the company, layoffs that have also had a strong impact on the security team.

Just in recent days, a

on Internet and social platforms has shown that there is a slowdown in the action to combat hate content, with Twitter which has worsened its performance.

 The official media have ignored the protests

, the largest since the tragic events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. Nothing on the CCTV and on the People's Daily, the voice of the PCC, which instead dedicated one of its articles to the directives of the leadership to "strictly implement the increase in the efficiency of the work to contain the pandemic is scientific", while the country continues to record increasing cases, which rose above

Relations with London

The situation between Beijing and London remains tense after the arrest

.

The Chinese ambassador to

has been summoned by the Foreign Office, sources from Rishi Sunak's government report.

The episode, the video of which ended up on social media, provoked the ire of London, also causing other international reactions, including the appeal of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier (who claimed to "understand" the protesters), that of the UN to the Chinese authorities to respect the right to demonstrate peacefully and the "firm" condemnation of the Federation of European Media (European Broadcasters Union) against "

 In Beijing, on the other hand, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian reported that Lawrence's arrest had taken place "because he did not identify himself as a journalist", while previously a BBC note had even reported that, according to the police, " he had been taken away so as not to let him contract Covid in the crowd".

China then accuses British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of

for stating that the

of relations with Beijing was over, leaving room for a "systemic challenge to our values" to be faced with a

in the face of repression in

and human rights abuses in

.

The British side's remarks "are full of ideological bias and malignantly slander China's policies," Beijing replied in a statement from its embassy in London.

As for the policies on Hong Kong and Xinjiang, "it is China's internal affairs and Britain has no qualification or right to make irresponsible comments."

Furthermore, London "confuses black and white with ulterior motives and should reflect on its own colonial mentality", when instead it would do well to meet China to "manage differences on the basis of mutual respect", putting aside prejudices, respecting facts and "stop slandering China with interference in its internal affairs".

Because it is an approach that "artificially creates obstacles to the development of relationships".