Try, if you can, to imagine the most extreme covid restrictions you experienced in 2020 lasting for over 2.5 years. Until now, China’s citizens have decided life in lockdown is preferable to being caught protesting the restrictions.
Except for North Korea, every populace, Iran and China included, has their limits. The reporting and pictures coming out of China are riveting.
I especially like how they’re using sarcasm. From the New York Times:
“When a police officer told people to stop chanting for an end to lockdowns, the crowd quickly pivoted. ‘Continue lockdowns!’ they chanted, in an echo of the sarcasm that had spread online in recent days, as people shared overblown praise for the government to protest censorship. ‘I want to do Covid tests!'”
People like me, with a built-in bias for democracy, are almost always disappointed by flickers of popular protest that are routinely squelched by the state.
That history won’t stop me from rooting for the underdogs, for sarcasm, and radical political change.