WHITE PAPER REVOLUTION

Cities across China have been witnessing waves of protests against the country’s tough zero-Covid policy in recent weeks. The movement, which is no longer limited to China alone, is widely being dubbed the ‘white paper revolution’.

This is because of the blank sheets of white A4-sized paper many demonstrators have been holding during these protests.

2. Key Takeaways

• In November 2022, at least 10 people were killed in a building fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, which had been under lockdown for about 100 days. People blamed China’s brutal lockdown for the deaths
• Protests first broke out in Xinjiang and then eventually spread to Beginning, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, Lanzhou, and Nanjing
• Over the weeks, the humble white sheet of paper became a symbol of the protests. It has come to symbolize the lack of free speech in the country
• White papers as a sign of protest were previously used in Hong Kong in 2020, to avoid slogans banned under the city’s new national security law.
• Demonstrators in Moscow have also used them this year to protest Russia’s war with Ukraine
• Students at universities in cities including Nanjing and Beijing are holding up blank sheets of paper in silent protest, a tactic used in the country to evade censorship or arrest
• White is a common funeral color in China and demonstrators are also using it to mourn those lost in the protests

3.A4Revolution

The hashtag “A4Revolution” — a reference to the size of the paper — began trending on Twitter after the protests started spreading across the nation

On China’s state-controlled social media, WeChat and Weibo, users are showing solidarity by  posting blank white squares or photos of themselves holding blank sheets of paper

4. Zero Covid Policy

• It is a strategy that aims to drive down the number of Covid-19 cases by imposing strict lockdowns, closing borders, and imposing travel bans
• When the pandemic started, Western countries adopted a mitigation approach that tried to flatten the curve while strengthening healthcare capacity to deal with possible flare-ups. But soon another strategy  the elimination approach  started to find acceptance
• This strategy eventually evolved into a Covid-elimination or zero-Covid plan. As part of the plan, governments tried to stamp out outbreaks down to the last case
• Australia, New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, and several other Asia Pacific countries applied the approach, involving highly restrictive measures, for different lengths of time, with varying degrees of severity in their Covid curbs

5. Countries opted out of Zero Covid Policy

• By the middle of 2021, healthcare authorities started questioning the zero-Covid approach to fighting the disease
• When vaccines started being rolled out worldwide, some countries also simultaneously started a gradual shift towards fewer lockdowns and more freedoms for citizens
• As the UK lifted restrictions putting its faith in the vaccination drive, France started issuing health passes to the vaccinated to enter public spaces
• Australia, after battling the record Delta wave surge, too started talking about “living with the virus” with the focus shifting from a number of cases to total hospitalizations
• New Zealand and China were among the countries that stuck to the elimination response. New Zealand ultimately transitioned away from a hard elimination approach in October 2021, but China has refused to pivot

6. Conclusion

While the virus has evolved, China’s response to tackling it has been rooted in zero tolerance for Covid cases

While this has helped the country stamp out every flare-up, a hard-to-lock-out Omicron variant has made the outbreaks frequent

Beijing’s harsh countermeasures to tackle Covid have imposed immense hardships on the lifestyle and livelihoods of citizens, making the curbs unpopular