‘The authorities will step up control’: where next for China after protests?

After mass demonstrations against Covid lockdowns, experts say Xi Jinping's response will be a further gradual crackdown

Since Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago, China's Communist party has enacted a sweeping crackdown on civil society. Independent NGOs have been shut down, journalists and human rights lawyers arrested and outspoken media tamed. Meanwhile, the government has invested heavily in a massive surveillance system to keep track of citizens' movements and activities.

Given their emphasis on national security and stability, party leaders would have been shocked therefore by the nationwide protests that broke out on 26 November in opposition to Xi's zero-Covid" policy. Demonstrators demanded an end to lockdowns and mass testing and some even called for the removal of the party and Xi himself.