China, a country where dissent is intolerable and protests are a rare sight, the Chinese people are employing unique ways to protest against the repressive measures being taken by the Chinese government to impose lockdown as a part of its zero-Covid policy. As the anti-lockdown protests have been going on for weeks now, the protestors are now holding white blank papers to register their protest.
The blank A4 papers have no symbols, pictures, or text written on them, metaphorically criticising the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s censorship of dissent. The protestors are using blank sheets to express their displeasure with the government’s efforts to silence dissenting voices, as well as to throw shade at the authorities because they cannot be arrested for holding blank papers.
Protestors, particularly university students are leading the protests in Wuhan, Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai, and other prominent cities.
People in Beijing marching on the third ring road… singing… and holding up empty white papers…
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) November 27, 2022
The empty white paper symbolizes their protest against censorship in China. 🔥🔥🔥
🔊sound …🧐#China #ChinaProtests pic.twitter.com/Rwg24s9Nul
Students at the prestigious Peking University in Beijing held a protest shouting slogans demanding the end of lockdowns and implored the government to look at the rest of the world moving on from Covid-19 restrictions. In the city of Lanzhou, protestors destroyed the PCR testing booths set up by the authorities as the anger against the zero-covid policy grew.
Protests against C0VID restrictions are continuing and growing in China. Residents destroy PCR test booths tonight in Lanzhou. pic.twitter.com/SrL3u1HqYy
— New World Odor™ (@hugh_mankind) November 26, 2022
What started as a symbolic protest in a bid to compel the Chinese government to ease its zero Covid measures including snap lockdowns, mass testing, quarantines, buildings, and even neighbourhood being locked out in the event of infection, has now turned into a larger movement seeking freedom and democracy. Protesters in some parts of China are also seeking the ouster of Xi Jinping.
Since past few weeks, in an unprecedented challenge to Xi Jinping’s leadership, protestors are raising anti-Xi slogans like ‘Xi Jinping, step down’, Communist Party, step down’ and ‘Unlock Xinjiang, unlock China.’
Breaking News：Chinese Protestors in Shanghai chanting “Xi Jinping, step down！Communist Party, step down！”
— Inty (@__Inty__) November 26, 2022
This is huge!
pic.twitter.com/mn1AeaN2EV
Other than Blank Page Revolution, people are calling it White Paper Revolution and A4 Revolution, referring to the size of the blank paper being used.
Even though the possibility to change China’s political system, the protests have definitely sent out a strong message to the Communist regime that too without saying or writing a word.
In an op-ed published in the American magazine National Review, columnists Jianli Yang and Bradley Thayer asserted that “the legacy of the blank page revolution will be long and have multifaceted implications, lighting the fuse of a larger revolution that will yield a free China.”
Notably, the protests in China were sparked after a building in Urumqi in Xinjiang caught fire on November 24, 2022. People could not easily escape the inferno because of the strict lockdown that has been imposed as part of China’s zero-Covid policy.
Other “secondary disasters” have occurred as a result of COVID restrictions; for example, a bus carrying quarantined people crashed in Guizhou. In another case, a pregnant woman miscarried after being refused admission to a hospital in Xian. In Lanzhou, a young boy died as a result of gas poisoning during a lockdown.
Hong Kong blank paper protests
The blank paper protests in China appear to be inspired by the 2020 Hong Kong protests against Beijing’s stringent National Security Laws.
In 2020, activists in Hong Kong raised blank sheets of white paper in protest to avoid slogans prohibited under the city’s new national security law, which was imposed following massive and sometimes violent protests the previous year. Blank paper was used during the Hong Kong protests after authorities banned dissident and subversive activities, with punishments up to life sentences.
Freedom House report on protests in China
According to China Dissent Monitor, a new database and research tool from Freedom House, protests have occurred there in recent months despite the government’s strict measures to crush dissent.
From June to September of this year, China saw 668 instances of dissent, with people protesting stalled housing projects, labour rights violations, fraud, COVID-19 policies, and state violence, among other subjects.
