China police out in numbers to prevent more COVID protests

Chinese police were out in force in Beijing and Shanghai on Tuesday to prevent more protests against COVID curbs which have disrupted the lives of millions, damaged the economy and briefly sparked rare calls for President Xi Jinping to step down, Qazet.az reports.

At least one person in the city of Hangzhou was arrested late on Monday, according to social media videos, after reports a busload of demontrators were taken away by police during Sunday night protests in Shanghai.

Simmering discontent with COVID prevention policies three years into the pandemic ignited into broader protests in cities thousands of miles apart throughout the weekend.

Mainland China's biggest wave of civil disobedience since Xi took power a decade ago comes as the number of COVID cases hit record highs daily and large parts of several cities face a new round of lockdowns.

COVID in China keeps spreading despite significant sacrifices made by most of the country's 1.4 billion people to prevent its transmission, adhering to a zero-COVID policy of eradicating all outbreaks that has isolated China from the rest of the world.

The lockdowns have exacerbated one of the steepest growth slowdowns China has faced in decades, disrupting global supply chains and roiling financial markets.

In Hangzhou, the capital of the eastern Zhejiang province, videos on social media which Reuters could not independently verify showed hundreds of police occupying a large public square on Monday night, preventing people from congregating.

One video showed police, surrounded by a small crowd of people holding smartphones, making an arrest while others tried to pull back the person being detained.