China Crushes Bank Depositor’s Protest

On Sunday, Chinese authorities brutally interrupted a peaceful demonstration that was being staged by hundreds of depositors. These depositors were attempting, in vain, to demand that banks that have run into a worsening financial problem return their life savings to them.

Since April, four rural banks in the central province of Henan in China have frozen accounts totaling millions of dollars, putting the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of consumers in jeopardy in an industry that was already suffering from the implementation of stringent Covid lockdowns.

Over the course of the past two months, beleaguered depositors have organized a number of protests in the city of Zhengzhou, which serves as the capital of the province of Henan; yet, their demands have consistently been met with deaf ears.
More than half a dozen protesters in a recent interview said that on Sunday, more than a thousand depositors from all across China gathered outside the Zhengzhou branch of the People’s Bank of China to launch their greatest protest yet.

The demonstration is one of the largest that China has witnessed since the pandemic, and internal travel has been restricted as a result of the many mobility restrictions imposed by COVID. Zhengzhou officials even resorted to interfering with the country’s computerized Covid health-code system in the past month in order to restrict the movements of depositors and prevent their planned protest, which caused an uproar across the nation.

This time, the majority of the protestors arrived in front of the bank before daybreak — some as early as 4 a.m. — in order to avoid being stopped by the authorities. A set of formidable stairs was occupied by the mob, which included elderly people and children. They shouted slogans and held up banners as they stood there.

Protesters in China, where dissent is severely repressed, frequently resort to displaying their patriotism by waving national flags as a form of public demonstration. The strategy’s purpose is to demonstrate that the group’s complaints are directed solely at the local governments and that it is the central government—not the local governments—that the individuals support and depend on to seek remedy.

At the entrance to the bank was a pillar that had a giant poster of Mao Zedong’s face stuck to it. Mao Zedong was a former leader of China.

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Hundreds of law enforcement officers and security guards, some dressed in uniform and others in plain clothes, gathered across the street and ringed the location as demonstrators yelled “gangsters” at them. Some of the officers were wearing uniforms.

The standoff continued for several hours until after 11 o’clock in the morning when rows of security officers abruptly surged up the steps and clashed with protestors, who threw bottles and other small objects at them. The confrontation continued for the next few hours.

According to eyewitness accounts and footage shared on social media platforms, the situation escalated rapidly and immediately deteriorated into pandemonium as security forces dragged protestors down the stairs and pummeled those who resisted, including women and the elderly.

According to one woman in a recent interview from the eastern part of the Shandong province, two security officers forced her to the ground and then hurt her arm by twisting it. A man named Sun, who is 27 years old and from the city of Shenzhen in the south of China, claimed that he was kicked by seven or eight guards while he was on the ground before being taken away. During the tussle, a man in his forties from the city of Wuhan in the middle of the country reported that the back of his shirt was entirely ripped off.

Many people commented that they were taken aback by the unexpected outbreak of violence by the security forces.

“I did not expect them to be so violent and shameless this time. There was no communication, no warning before they brutally dispersed us ” said one depositor from a city outside of Henan who had participated in protests in Zhengzhou in the past. “Why would government workers choose to assault us? We’re just regular folks who want our deposits returned, and there’s nothing illegal about what we did “the woman from Shandong stated.

According to people who were taken there, the demonstrators were hastily loaded onto dozens of buses and transported to temporary detention facilities located all throughout the city. These venues ranged from hotels and schools to workplaces. According to the individuals, those who were hurt were sent to hospitals, and those who had been detained were freed in large numbers by the late afternoon.
The Henan banking regulator issued a brief statement late on Sunday night, claiming that “relevant departments” were stepping up their efforts to verify information on customer funds at the four rural banks. The statement was brief and to the point.

In the announcement, it was stated that “(Authorities) are coming up with a plan to deal with the issue, which will be announced in the near future. “In a statement released late on Sunday, the police in Xuchang, a city that is neighbored by Zhengzhou, said that they had recently arrested members of an alleged “criminal gang.” These individuals were accused of effectively taking control over the Henan rural banks beginning in 2011 — by leveraging their shareholdings and “manipulating banks executives.”

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The police stated that the suspects were also accused of illegally transferring cash through fraudulent loans, and they added that some of the defendants’ funds and assets had been confiscated and frozen as a result of these allegations.