Ai Wei Wei says zero-COVID protests won’t “shake” Chinese government

Ai Wei Wei, the Chinese dissident whose activist art has made him Beijing’s best-known critic, said on Monday that he is cynical that a wave of protests across China would “shake” Xi Jinping’s government.

Protesters have taken to the streets to demonstrate against China’s heavy COVID-19 measures in an unprecedented show of civil disobedience since Xi assumed power.

During his tenure, Xi has overseen a crackdown on dissent and the expansion of a high-tech surveillance system that has made protests riskier.

“I don’t think anybody can lead these kinds of protests because China has no political environment. For the past 70 years, they have cleaned out any people, intellectual or media who can raise any question — so there’s no ecosystem in the political situation,” Ai said from his home in Portugal.

A deadly fire in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang region, triggered the multi-city protests. Demonstrators claim lockdown measures were partly to blame after 10 people who had been trapped in their apartments were killed. Officials have denied the claim.

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