Chinese Protests Aren’t about COVID — They’re about a Dictatorship

A protester holds up a white piece of paper as a statement against censorship during a protest against the Chinese Communist Party's strict Zero-COVID measures on November 27, 2022, in Beijing, China. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Neither the Chinese Communist Party’s draconian conduct nor the ongoing protests are really about COVID. They are part of the battle between communism and freedom, writes Hudson Senior Fellow and China Center Director Miles Yu in the New York Post. Below are some highlights.

1. Xi Jinping has Mao Zedong’s deadly, totalitarian mindset.

The same thinking that drove Mao in the 1950s to believe the omnipotent CCP could eradicate all the rats and sparrows in China motivates Xi’s COVID-Zero policies. Mao’s draconian Great Leap Forward led to the deaths of more than 40 million Chinese people. Xi’s draconian COVID-Zero policy threatens to do the same. They are motivated by a purely totalitarian ideology that assumes both the complete malleability of nature and the utter infallibility and invincibility of the party that could easily destroy nature and science.

2. CCP callousness now threatens China’s middle class.

The CCP is consistently callous toward its people’s well-being, but this callousness has traditionally affected migrant workers and the rural poor more. This time, the party’s all-encompassing COVID-Zero lockdowns have affected the property-owning and educated middle class and the rich, and this brings with it unintended consequences. Millions of Chinese people across the nation, from all sections of the repressed country, are now willing to risk imprisonment, torture, and even death to stand up to their oppressors.

3. Grassroots resistance is possible in China.

This national uprising disproves the prevailing pessimism in the West toward the possibility of substantial grassroots resistance to the CCP. We are now seeing that silence does not necessarily indicate capitulation to repression. The possibility of resistance is ever present, if only the opportunity presents itself. The Chinese people’s current anger and desire for freedom have brewed for some time, and the courage of the people has grown alongside these feelings. Each Chinese citizen who stands up becomes a beacon of courage and inspiration to many more.

4. Now is a critical time for China.

The next few days will be crucial for the party, Chinese dissidents, and the leaders of the free world. Each side is regrouping, and there can be no doubt that the CCP is seriously contemplating brutal and bloody crackdowns.

5. The free world needs to support the Chinese protestors.

Now, more than ever, leaders in the free world need to openly express their support for the Chinese people and their condemnation of the CCP’s repression. This has been a primary aim of Hudson Institute’s China Center and its series of videos entitled Evening Chats, in which Seventieth Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks directly to the Chinese people about the CCP’s repression and the universality of liberty and human rights. Our current leaders need to take up this charge, and they need to do so with zero ambiguity.

Go Deeper

In the Evening Chats video series, Hudson Distinguished Fellow and Seventieth Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explains why freedom and democracy are universal values that apply to Chinese people.

Senior Fellow John Lee describes in a Hudson policy memo how China uses political warfare against the United States and its allies.

Hudson Institute will host a conversation with Thirtieth Prime Minister of Australia Scott Morrison and China Center Director Miles Yu to discuss Australia’s role in combatting the threat to a free and open Indo-Pacific.