Outside China, Protests Are Grabbing Headlines

In China, the censors are working nonstop. Thousands of protestors have gathered in the streets of more than a dozen Chinese cities in recent days, demanding an end to strict Covid lockdown restrictions and political freedoms in a rare display of rage against the Chinese Communist Party.

For major news outlets around the world, it is one of the top stories, if not the top story. However, the unprecedented challenge to Chairman Xi Jinping has received almost little publicity for the hundreds of millions of Chinese who rely on state-run media for their news.

This is due to the fact that Chinese media have mostly ignored the rebellion, which is thought to be one of the greatest to occur in recent memory, as Xi deploys a variety of iron-fist techniques to stifle coverage and suppress the totalitarian nation’s growing acts of dissent. For instance, the state-run Xinhua News Agency’s webpage lacked any coverage of the demonstrations on Monday. In reality, a scan of its website revealed that the propaganda organization had not used the word “protest” in any digital pieces since the protests started.

Xinhua is a common news source. Attempts are being made by additional state-run media sources to completely ignore the widespread protests, which have started in at least 16 locations. The websites of the People’s Daily and China Daily, two more well-known state-controlled media outlets, did not mention the protests on Monday.

According to Jonathan Yerushalmy of The Guardian, CCTV “spending most of the morning covering the announcement of the planned launch of the Shenzhou-15 spacecraft to China’s space station on Tuesday.”

According to Philip Hsu, director of the Center for China Studies at National Taiwan University and a visiting fellow at Brookings, “the lack of media coverage, due to Xi’s control, restricts the spread of information and helps, to some extent, prevent the protests from proliferating in an unbridled fashion.”

Hsu would not rule out the idea that some coverage choices were made out of self-censorship. But this situation, according to Hsu, “reflects an even more fundamental control by the Party than if there are the directives, because the media has been extensively conditioned on what they can and cannot do without being instructed individually.”

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Young protesters across China held up sheets of white paper as a metaphor for the numerous critical posts, news stories, and vocal social media accounts that were removed from the internet in a symbolic protest against the ever-tightening censorship.

The deliberate attempt by the state-run media to put an end to the demonstrations and spread official messages exposed the depths to which Xi’s mouthpieces will go to quell dissension. Given that the absence of coverage has not been able to quell the escalating protests or conceal the reality from the world that is eluding the authoritarian hold via social media, it also raises concerns about the efficacy of his propaganda machine.

It’s possible that this is the reason why state-run media is currently adopting a slightly different strategy. In some cases, these pieces appear to be intended to quiet the uproar by implying that the government will strive to “refine” its harsh Covid measures. For instance, The People’s Daily’s site included a headline that said, “Precision” is required “as cities roll out optimal COVID response.” In other words, some wiggle room is needed for the rigid Covid limits.

It remains to be seen whether that strategy will be successful. But Hsu asserted that one “important” shift brought about by the protests will be “impossible to roll back,” “no matter what happens.”

Individual citizens now understand that there is a good probability that others may join their resistance, according to Hsu.

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