In Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, districts including Haizhu, Baiyun, Fanyu, Tianhe, Conghua, Huadu and Liwan said restrictions on movement would be lifted to implement a 20-point optimization plan announced by the central government earlier this month. “High risk” areas, however, would remain under lockdown.
The manufacturing hub of nearly 19 million people is home to many migrant workers. The city has been among the hardest hit by China’s economy-throttling zero-COVID policy, which has shuttered factories and prevented out-of-work laborers from going home or seeking employment in other regions.
Guangzhou’s residents were among those across the country who took to the streets in frustration at the excesses of the government’s zero-tolerance pandemic controls, but irregular clashes with local police in several districts have been ongoing for at least two weeks.
They continued in Haizhu, a district of roughly 1.8 million people, on Monday and Tuesday night, according to social media footage reposted to Twitter, which Chinese protesters and diaspora have used to digitally archive clips being censored within China’s Great Firewall.
The videos showed demonstrators throwing glass bottles at hazmat-clad police wielding riot shields. In another clip, a small protest appeared to be dispersed with tear gas canisters.
A Reuters report verified the footage as having been filmed in Haizhu, but the events leading up to the clash weren’t clear. Witness reports on social media said discontent grew over limits on movement and the difficulty of acquiring daily necessities.
China’s National Health Commission said on Wednesday that the country recorded 37,828 new COVID infections on November 29, of which around one in 10 were symptomatic. New cases declined for the second day in a row after the NHC reported five days of record numbers as the country faces its biggest surge since the pandemic began three years ago.
As with a previous large outbreak in Shanghai this past spring, the majority of cases are asymptomatic and fatalities remain low. China’s official death toll is 5,233, with no new deaths in the past 48 hours.
The highly transmissible but less severe Omicron variant is contributing to public grievances about President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-COVID strategy and the necessity of on-and-off lockdowns and regular, intrusive mass testing.
China’s largest political protests in years began on November 25 and reached 51 locations across 24 cities, according to Australia’s ASPI think tank. Guangdong alone accounted for three of the five demonstrations that took place on Tuesday, in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan.
