As China's Xi Jinping Tightens Grip on Power, a Faceless Protest Grows

President Xi Jinping cut a universally admired figure as he opened a major political event to thunderous applause on Sunday. But the widely expected extension of his rule over China belies a faceless protest emerging from Beijing.

On October 13, three days before the Chinese Communist Party's twice-a-decade national congress, images of a single man demonstrating against Xi's right to rule began circulating on Twitter. The lone protester—still unidentified—hung banners from an overpass in Beijing's Haidian district to denounce China's leader.

"Food, not COVID tests. Reform, not Cultural Revolution. Freedom, not lockdown. Votes, not a leader. Dignity, not lies. Citizens, not slaves," one read, with the same slogans chanted by a megaphone.

Another called for "dictator and traitor Xi Jinping" to be overthrown, according to viral images on Twitter.

Weibo, one of China's main social media websites, moved to censor vague phrases including "Beijing" and "Haidian" that day and was still censoring "Sitong Bridge," the site of the protest, at the time of publication.

Chinese police later arrested the individual, witnesses said, but the authorities haven't acknowledged the incident. The man's whereabouts are unknown, while unverified advertisements circulating on social media offered jobs as bridge security guards.

Hundreds of users on WeChat found their accounts suspended, some permanently, for posting about the incident on the eve of the CCP's 20th National Congress. The do-everything app has become a vital part of life in China and is used for everything from cashless payments to generating COVID-19 "health codes" to demonstrate they're vaccinated or free of the virus.

In the first quarter of this year, WeChat reported nearly 1.3 billion monthly active users, while Weibo had around 580 million. Some of those banned on the former took to the latter to repent and ask for their accounts back.

The same slogans in last Thursday's rare public protest have popped up anonymously elsewhere in Beijing and spread to at least eight Chinese cities including Shanghai and Shenzhen, according to social media posts Newsweek wasn't able to independently verify.

One post showed anti-Xi phrases spray-painted on the walls of a bathroom at the China Film Archive cinema in Beijing. Public toilets are unique as one of the few places in China not covered by surveillance cameras.

On Monday, Radio Free Asia reported the suspected arrest of a retired teacher in Shanghai, 67-year-old Gu Guoping, who was unreachable after having retweeted photos and video of the protest.

Outside of China, the lone protester's message has appeared on the walls and bulletin boards on hundreds of university campuses—some in Asia, many in the West. But Beijing's priority is to manage the Chinese public's exposure to sensitive discussions.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg said it asked the Chinese foreign ministry about the protest. A spokesperson denied knowledge of the incident, and the exchange—both question and answer—was struck from the ministry's transcript.

China is continuing to suppress references to the demonstration for threatening to upstage the party congress, which is expected to grant Xi a norm-breaking third term as leader. As such, activity on Weibo and WeChat remains highly restricted.

Yale professor Taisu Zhang said on Twitter on Monday that his Weibo account had been suspended for 30 days for sharing a graph comparing the number of certain phrases Xi used during his opening remarks the day before—a sign that no unofficial accounts outside of the government or party were allowed to post about the event at all.

To be sure, there's no shortage of social grievances when it comes to Beijing's policies, most notably Xi's signature public health strategy known as "dynamic zero COVID," which China's president defended as having "protected the people's health and safety to the greatest extent possible."

However, since Weibo and WeChat were introduced to the Chinese public in 2009 and 2011—coinciding with bans on Western alternatives like Twitter and Facebook—the government has spent the past decade developing technical and legal instruments to effectively censor dissent.

It has made collective action such as political demonstrations nearly impossible to discuss, let alone organize. And so just like the recent rumors about a palace coup, the most likely outcome of the lone protest is simply to fizzle out of existence.

"The protester is clearly a very courageous individual who knows what to expect. His voice has been recirculated by others, which shows his message does enjoy support," said Steve Tsang, politics professor and director of the SOAS China Institute in London.

"But the party-state has largely kept it off the airwaves in China, and is redoubling its efforts to preempt any real consequences," he told Newsweek. "Unless and until China's economy becomes a disaster zone, and the party top echelons divided, protest like that will not have much real societal impact."

"Xi made it clear from when he became leader in 2012 that he would act resolutely against any threat to the Party's monopoly of power. He will keep this promise," Tsang said.