A year on from the white-paper protests, China looks much different

It was a year ago this month that China experienced the biggest wave of unrest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Thousands of people, mostly students and youngsters, gathered in cities across China to show their displeasure with the government’s exceptionally harsh covid-19 controls. The public was fed up with the constant testing, the brutal lockdowns and the restrictions on movement. Some of the demonstrators chanted slogans. A few called for Xi Jinping, China’s leader, to step down. Many held up blank pieces of paper, a wry critique of China’s stifling censorship regime. The events thus became known as the “white-paper protests”.They were effective—or appeared to be. Within weeks the government abruptly changed course, ending its “zero-covid” policy. It may have been an accumulation of pressure, not least economic, that forced the government’s hand. Chinese officials would never acknowledge the demonstrations as a turning point, lest they encourage more like them. But reports suggest that the country’s leaders did have the protesters in mind, along with other considerations, when they began lifting restrictions in early December of last year.