Many young people have been arrested following the recent protests in China. Among them, a remarkable number of young women who have no campaigning experience. It seems that the Communist Party wants to issue a harsh warning to the new generation.
They were with five girlfriends, and had a golden future ahead of them. They had graduated one or two years from prestigious universities in Beijing. They had just embarked on promising careers, whether in media, publishing or finance. And they had a good family background, with – important in China – connections ‘in the system’. They grew up in prosperity and in a protected environment, in the better circles of Beijing.
Admittedly, their safe lives had been shaken up recently. They had been at the Liangma River protest in Beijing, a risky act in China. They wanted to make their voices heard following a deadly fire in Xinjiang, yet another outgrowth of the zero-covid policy. A day later they were arrested and interrogated, their phones were taken away, but they were soon released. All in all, they seemed to be fine. A little later, the zero-covid policy was lifted. The worst seemed over.
But then, three weeks later, one by one they disappeared. On December 18, relatives and friends lost contact with two of the five friends, the others followed in the following days. They turned out to be secretly arrested, together with two other people in their vicinity. Three weeks later, they are still trapped. Some have had contact with a lawyer, others are being made difficult. No one knows what awaits them, or what they are accused of.
“If you look honestly at this case, you see five harmless girls who took part in the protest, but were not at all central,” says a friend, trying to analyze what the authorities want. At best, the police want to scare them, and they will be released under conditions within 37 days (the maximum period). In the worst case, orders have been given for a political purge, and they are convicted of ‘disturbing the public order’, with a maximum sentence of three years.
Hundred resistance actions
The first scenario is the most likely, but the second is not inconceivable. Especially following Chen Wenqing, security chief of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), characterized the protests as an action by “hostile forces”. “A direction has been set: they want to tackle young people so that they do not get dangerous thoughts,” says the girlfriend. “I feel that the police should now carry out that task, targeting an easy target: some recent college girls.”
At the end of November, the unthinkable happened in China: protests once morest the zero-covid policy took place across the country, and in some places once morest the regime. The Australian think tank ASPI counted more than a hundred resistance actions in 39 cities. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, but most – as far as we know – were released within 24 hours. A week later, the zero-covid policy was abruptly lifted, the protest seemed to be over.
But many young people are still imprisoned. In Shanghai, some protesters have not been heard from since their arrest. At least eight youths were detained for weeks in Guangzhou, Chengdu and Nanjing. And in Beijing, at least thirteen protesters were arrested once more following mid-December, some of them as recently as last week. Presumably many more young people have been arrested, but this remains invisible due to government censorship.
The Chinese government seems to be tackling young people now that the attention has shifted. This is a well-known tactic of the CCP, which is called “settling accounts following the fall” in China. But those involved in the protests want to break the silence of that ‘autumn’.
Concerns regarding safety
We spoke to four friends of arrested youths in Beijing, and two lawyers in Guangzhou. They all spoke on condition of anonymity. Three of the four friends took part in protests themselves, and are concerned regarding their own safety. The police have forbidden those involved to go public regarding the arrests.
The friends want attention for government repression, but do not want to endanger the arrested young people. In the shadowy and politicized Chinese legal system, political interests can play a role in a case, which can influence attention in foreign media. At the request of those involved, we do not name any arrested young people, and only publish incriminating facts that are already known to the police.
Harsh repression once morest demonstrators is common in China. But what makes the followingmath of these protests striking is that this repression is aimed at many young people without any experience of political activism, who got carried away in the outrage regarding a zero-covid policy that was subsequently abolished. That they disappear behind bars for weeks and risk years of imprisonment is extreme even by Chinese standards.
“If you look at history, this is rather exaggerated,” says the girlfriend. “Even following the June 4 incident (the crushed student protest in 1989, ed.) only the leaders were arrested. For the majority of participants, the consequences were limited to difficulties in graduating or finding work. But this time, ordinary participants are also arrested. And this protest was very small compared to June 4, it was on a completely different scale.”
But even if the protest was of a different scale, it was perceived as threatening by the CCP. “It was the biggest political protest since 1989, and it has had a huge impact on many people,” said one of the lawyers in Guangzhou. “The party state is still considering what it will do, but the goal is at least to scare people. It is not excluded that protesters will be sentenced to prison terms.”
Five girlfriends
The five friends from Beijing were also young people without any activist experience. They were socially engaged, and some of them took part in women’s rights activities. A striking number of demonstrators, and a striking number of detainees, are women. Some of them are active on gender issues, one of the last social issues in China that can still be openly debated, albeit stripped of political connotations.
According to their friends, the five were even quite naive. After the deadly fire in Xinjiang, they started discussing indignantly on WeChat, the Chinese communication app monitored by the government. One of them suggested moving the conversation to Telegram, a foreign app where communications are encrypted but illegal in China. They started a Telegram group, added friends, and soon had a group of regarding sixty members.
And then someone placed an invitation in the group for a vigil on the Liangma River, which would become the protest march. The friends divided the tasks: one would bring candles, another memorial cards, and another white sheets of paper. On the spot, they chanted slogans for freedom of the press. They did not realize how suspicious they were of the Chinese regime: a group, a division of tasks, and a foreign app is enough to be regarded as an organizer.
“Many young people have no experience with this,” says the lawyer in Guangzhou. “They thought they were just holding up a white sheet of paper and didn’t expect to be arrested for it. They felt they had not broken any laws at all.”
“When I met them, I always felt that we shared the same values, but that they had much less knowledge of what has happened in China over the past thirty years,” says a former colleague of one of the five friends. . “They don’t know what the CCP fears most: that you organize a group or a protest. Many people have no fear because they are ignorant. Only when you experience it do you know how terrifying the authorities can be.”
Printout of their conversations
The ex-colleague was also present at the protest on the Liangma River, but she took far-reaching precautions – learned from previous clashes with the police. She didn’t scan a health code, or report her presence on any communication app. Afterwards she hid her phone. But the five friends were in full communication in the Telegram group, and one of them failed to delete the app. The police showed a complete transcript of the conversations.
According to friends, that may be the reason for their arrest: not because they formed the hard core, but simply because they left most of the evidence behind. “It can make the job easier for the police,” says a friend who works in the legal sector. “For most people, the police only have proof that they were present, and can only issue a warning. It is more difficult to prove that someone organized something or shouted radical slogans.”
Friends and relatives are now trying to find out what the political orders are, and whether the five friends have a chance at a parole or a criminal case. They draw hope from Chengdu, Nanjing and Guangzhou, where some demonstrators were released following one to four weeks of detention. In the case of the five, a signal should come before Chinese New Year, other young people will probably spend the important family celebration in detention.
But even if the five are released unconditionally, it might leave a lasting mark on their lives. With a conditional release, people are placed under surveillance for a year. They can be sent back to their native village, often have to cut ties with friends, and can lose their jobs. If they don’t behave, they can still be convicted. In Shanghai, young people have already been fired for participating in the protests.
“I think the price will be paid for life,” says the girlfriend. “It makes me very emotional. I think society can get better thanks to these kind of courageous people who continue to resist, but they pay the price with their future. These are really good girls, but they are so fragile. They had only just begun their new lives. This is so cruel to them.”
