The protests throughout China against the communist government have caught the world by surprise. China’s zero-Covid policies have been brutal for over two years, but only now are we seeing widespread demonstrations against them. And of course, zero-Covid is far from the only thing the Chinese government does that is worth protesting. Yet protests are relatively rare.
It’s not only because the Chinese government strictly controls information, although that is part of the reason. The overarching reason is the same reason that protests in authoritarian states almost always catch outside observers by surprise.
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