The People's Republic of China's Simmering Revolt

"Let us strike from schools and from work and remove the dictatorial traitor Xi Jinping."

"We don't want COVID tests, we want to eat; we don't want lockdowns, we want to be free."

Banners strung up on bridge in Beijing, China 

 

"We are all on the same path. We are about to take action. I hope you can retweet this."

"Tell dictator Xi Jinping that there are still some men left in China who walk the path to freedom."

Peng Zaizhou Twitter account

 

"Only underneath that despair will there be resistance."

"This isn't the first time someone has come forward, and it won't be the last ... Xi Jinping's rebellious actions are sure to spark more political agitation." 

1989 student protest leader Wang Dan 

 

"The person who hung the banner posted a link to a website. Everything he did was within the scope of the constitution of the People's Republic of China."

"He asked for the recall of the CCP general secretary [Xi Jinping] and also put forward his own views on how to elect [a new leader]."

"This is all legal and in accordance with the party constitution, so I think he is someone within the [party or government]." 

Social media user under the pseudonym Tang 

The protester who hung two banners off a Beijing overpass on Oct. 13, 2022 can be seen on the bridge at the left edge of the banner.  Radio Free Asia

The manifesto of a protester, now identified as Peng Liva, and taken into police custody  was removed from the internet. The manifesto called for people to revolt against the tyranny of the Xi Jinping regime by smashing COVID testing centres. This, at the very time that the Chinese president was attending the Chinese communist Party's Congress. Mr. Xi is expected to come out of that congress the first leader to be granted a third term since Mao Zedong. The congress is to open with the president's speech televised, outlining priorities for the next five years.

 

The month-long process of changing appointments at the elite level of the People's Republic, the party and the government, will proceed from there. And at this conspicuously auspicious time for Xi Jinping awaiting the inevitable outcome, the protest lit by Peng Liva will earn him a long imprisonment in a closed trial, making a martyr of him. The support he will have in his campaign will swell underground and become enormously difficult to control. The immediate result, however, is a censorship shut-down of anything resembling a protest against the current government.

The protester [in orange] who hung the banners off a Beijing overpass on Oct. 13, 2022 is placed in a police car. Credit: Screenshot from Reuters video

The immediate impression made by the two banners hung so prominently by Peng Liva on Sitong Bridge in the Chinese capital has seen widespread discussion on Twitter, now banned in China. There is no mention of the event on the censored Chinese internet. Yet another movement that by necessity has gone underground where it sizzles and swells and promises to ignite a wider movement inimical to the plans of the Xi regime. On line users had their accounts frozen on WeChat for posting or discussing the protest, while photographs and videos documenting the event were scrubbed.

The courage of the protester has been praised, he is called a hero, a 'warrior', the 'new tank man'. No trace of the banners or of a fire that had sent up a smoke plume on the bridge remains. Terms related to the picture and the protest on search engines yield no results on China's censored internet. "There was a brave person in Beijing today", one Chinese social media user wrote, with thumbs up and roses. On the WeChat app, support has arisen sharing links to a song called "Sitong Bridge" the name of the bridge in the Haidian sector of Beijing. The song too is now censored in Chinese music apps.

Chinese President Xi Jinping claps after his speech as China's new Politburo Standing Committee members meet the press at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China   REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo

 

"China is currently stable, especially its capital Beijing."

"The COVID-19 epidemic has been well controlled here."

"In Beijing there is no public dissatisfaction caused by epidemic control as in some other remote places in China."

Hu Xijin, former editor nationalistic Global Times