Dictatorships: demonstrations, an explosive cocktail feared by all autocrats

By Daniel-Dylan Böhmer (

Die Welt

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Suddenly, the situation seems to be about to change.

On a market street in Guangzhou, China, people throw bottles at police, then bricks.

The intervention forces advance.

Behind their Plexiglas shields, security forces wear white hooded coveralls, goggles and breathing masks.

After being the scene of the biggest coronavirus epidemic in a long time, Guangzhou is facing a much more dangerous virus: the seed of the overthrow.

Read alsoChina has not been able to get out of “zero Covid” and is exposed to more than 1 million deaths

While people here are throwing bottles to protest against the confinement that has been in place for almost two months in their neighborhood, others in Beijing are waving white paper in protest against censorship.

While in Shanghai, we hear the resonance of the

, a socialist anthem par excellence, whose values ​​of freedom are far removed from those of the Communist Party in power in China.

These voices demand the fall of the government.

Could this be the beginnings of a democracy to come?

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