Chinese artist Ai Weiwei says protests won’t shake government

From your home in Portugal, There weiweithe famous Chinese dissident whose art has always criticized the policies of the Beijing government, said that the recent wave of protests against restrictions to contain Covid-19 should not shake the government of Xi Jinping, because the police will simply repress them in silence.

Protesters took to the streets of XangothereBeijing and other Chinese cities in recent days to protest measures to contain Covid-19 and restrictions on freedom, a show of civil disobedience unprecedented since leader Xi took power.

Nearly three years after the pandemic, China says its policies are not geared towards having zero cases of the disease all the time, but to act “dynamically” when cases arise.

Sitting in your garden, There said the protesters were unlikely to continue – not only because security forces would crack down on those demonstrating, but also because the protesters themselves lacked organization and leadership.

“There’s no clear political agenda, so it’s very easy to just lock them up and move on,” he said. There told Reuters on Monday (28), adding that there were mtheres “demands” in 1989, when there was a bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in and around Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

“Even if something happens on the scale of Hong Kong or the scale of 1989, theredon’t seethere shake the government,” he added.

Asked who could lead the protest movement, Ai, who spent 81 days in detention in China in 2011, said no one could because the country lacks a “political environment”.

“For 70 years they have eliminated anyone, intellectual or media who might raise any issue.”

While Ai said the protests were unlikely to have an impact on the government, he said China’s ruling Communist Party was “very concerned about revolutions” and would do “everything to prevent that from happening,” from internet censorship to the use of police force.