Guangzhou Residents Hold Protests For COVID-19 Restrictions, The Government Will Strict Actions That Disrupt Order

Police stand guard to anticipate anti-COVID-19 protests in China (Wikimedia Commons/Cinea467)

JAKARTA - Residents in Guangzhou City, China clashed with riot police on Tuesday night, just hours after the government pledged to deal with an 'enemy force', following protests that rarely occurred over zero-COVID policies.

Protesters in the city of 15 million people threw objects at riot police wearing hazmat, responding by releasing tear gas at the crowd and handling several people, social media footage showed, launching The National News November 30.

Guangzhou City has been hit hard by a recent wave of infections.

Meanwhile, China has the strictest COVID-19 control measures in the world, although the increasingly reduced danger of less dangerous types of the Omicron virus is globally dominant.

Despite easing in some local restrictions, authorities remain firm on President Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy, threatening further action against demonstrators.

Beijing must firmly " crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by enemy forces," the central political and legal affairs committee of the Chinese Communist Party said in a meeting reported by state media on Tuesday. It did not directly refer to the protests.

It said the government would "firmly crack down on illegal and criminal acts that disrupt social order".

It is known that demonstrations against COVID-19 restrictions began erupting on Saturday after anger over the deaths of 10 people in an apartment building in Urumqi, the western capital of Xinjiang.

People claim COVID-19 restrictions prevent residents from escaping from the building and hindering rescue efforts. Authorities have denied it.

On the weekend, police clashed with protesters in the capitals Beijing and Shanghai, with demonstrations also reportedly taking place in other cities, including the center of Wuhan, where the virus was first detected in 2019 and in Hong Kong.

On Monday, large numbers of security forces were deployed to the streets, halting planned protests in Shanghai and Beijing.

The government has stood firm in its stance against the virus, and has made efforts to cancel gatherings of crowds, with university classes and exams sent online.

In addition, police began investigating protesters, calling individuals to police stations and demanding written reports of their recent activities, according to agency reports.

"The police came to my front door to ask everything and asked me to complete a written note," a Beijing resident declined to be named to Reuters.

Another resident said some friends who uploaded a video of the protest on social media were taken to the police station and asked to sign a promise that they would not do it again. Some people gave a similar account to Reuters on Tuesday.

It's unclear how authorities identified the person they wanted to ask, or how many people the authorities contacted.

Beijing's Public Security Bureau did not comment.

Analysts at the Economist Intelligence Unit said in a note authorities were likely to respond to protests with increased security, stressing plans to relax restrictions "while avoiding depictions of having acknowledged the demands of the protesters".