DaKardii wrote: ↑Mon Nov 28, 2022 1:06 pm
What are the chances that the ongoing protests in China escalate into an armed conflict?
With a domestic policing budget supposedly larger than defense budget, this seems a natural next step. Maybe it will work for a while, but the discontent is already at high levels, and economic progress has been holding them together for a long time and it's coming unglued. Unravelling they are.
Chinese protesters say police seeking them out
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63785351
"Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore, added that it was also important to note that Chinese police had "tremendous capacity... [and] the ability of China to control these protests going forward... is quite high".
Censorship has gone into overdrive on Chinese social media platforms since the weekend's protests, to stop people seeing and discussing them."
Chinese officials have implied that complaints over China's tough Covid curbs were a result of "arbitrary measures" rolled out at a local level, rather than as a result of national guidelines."
The blame game has begun and it's internal. Xi's new politburo members include the mayor's of Beijing and Shanghai who conducted previous atrocious lockdowns. Although inexperienced, it earned them a promotion.
"[There is an] over practice of containment measures [in some localities]... that is not aligned to national policies," said Cheng You Quan of the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration at Tuesday's press conference.
"Local governments should show more responsibility and follow national guidelines, [instead of following practices like] arbitrarily stopping schools and industry. We should name and shame as well as pursue criminal responsibility if necessary. Lockdowns should be quick and the removal of lockdowns should be equally quick."