Yes, there were big protests against Zero Covid after a while. The absurd thing about the narrative of it being “brutal” and “totalitarian” is that the Zero Covid policies were all carried out by neighborhood volunteer organizations, not the police or the military. When the protests started, the central government quickly realized that the only way to keep enforcing it would be through the kind of overwhelming police crackdown that the western press imagined was happening, so they ended the policy instead. What happened does possibly signal a new future for Chinese politics, but not for the reasons that this article or the liberal western press says:
Are the protests rocking China a reference to a real thing?
Yes, there were big protests against Zero Covid after a while. The absurd thing about the narrative of it being “brutal” and “totalitarian” is that the Zero Covid policies were all carried out by neighborhood volunteer organizations, not the police or the military. When the protests started, the central government quickly realized that the only way to keep enforcing it would be through the kind of overwhelming police crackdown that the western press imagined was happening, so they ended the policy instead. What happened does possibly signal a new future for Chinese politics, but not for the reasons that this article or the liberal western press says:
Politics In Command? – China In The New Era And That Interesting Little Thing That Happened In November 2022
Add Oil! – The Tragedy of Zero-Covid