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What Xi’s Zero-COVID Fiasco Might Mean for China and the World

Protests spotlight the regime's misguided approach to the pandemic and lackluster vaccination campaign.

By , a deputy editor at Foreign Policy.
A woman holds a blank sheet of paper as demonstrators protest the deaths caused by an apartment complex fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, at the Langson Library on the campus of the University of California, Irvine.
A woman holds a blank sheet of paper as demonstrators protest the deaths caused by an apartment complex fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, at the Langson Library on the campus of the University of California, Irvine.
A woman holds a blank sheet of paper as demonstrators protest the deaths caused by an apartment complex fire in Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, at the Langson Library on the campus of the University of California, Irvine, on Nov. 29. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

China has seen dozens of protests across the country this past week—including in the capital, Beijing, and financial center Shanghai—inspired by anger at the government’s zero-COVID policy and the extreme lockdowns imposed to control outbreaks of the coronavirus. They amount to some of the most significant protests China has seen since 1989, when a student-led movement gathered at Tiananmen Square was brutally repressed by the regime.

Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @CameronAbadi

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