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Protest action in Beijing on November 27th
Photo: THOMAS PETER / REUTERS
Despite massive repression and close surveillance, thousands of Chinese have recently expressed their dissatisfaction with their government's continued strict "zero Covid policy".
One of the leaders of the 1989 student protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square now sees President Xi Jinping as weakened by the demonstrations.
'You can cheat your people for a while, some of the people maybe all their lives.
But never think you can fool everyone forever," exiled dissident Wu'er Kaixi told the Tagesspiegel.
The mass protests came after ten people suffocated and burned in their homes in a fire in Xinjiang province last Thursday evening – possibly because they were not allowed to leave their homes due to a lockdown.
“The Chinese people are neither stupid nor weak.
That should make you tremble, Xi Jinping," said the 54-year-old.
The recent protests filled him with hope.
However, he is also afraid of an escalation.
"I definitely don't want to see a second massacre."
"Tyrants fear nothing more than fearless men"
The dissident was referring to the bloody crackdown on the 1989 democracy protests on Tiananmen Square.
Still, Wu'er Kaixi encouraged protesters not to fear the Chinese leadership.
"Tyrants fear nothing more than fearless men," he said.
He also asked the demonstrators to apologize because the change in 1989 had not succeeded.
»We didn't manage to overcome the dictatorship 33 years ago.
We have entrusted this task to you, the next generations.
I'm sorry for that."
Wu'er Kaixi was one of the best-known student leaders of the pro-democracy movement in China, which was brutally crushed in 1989.
After the massacre, he fled China, where he was persecuted.
He now lives in exile in Taiwan.
Some of the protests against the government's zero-Covid policy were directed against China's head of state Xi Jinping.
However, a large police presence in cities with over a million inhabitants such as Beijing and Shanghai had apparently curbed the outbreak of new mass protests.
China's highest security body had also called for a "tough crackdown" on the demonstrators.
fek/AFP