<Anchor>



Protests against the corona lockdown in China are spreading across the country.

As slogans shouting 'Xi Jinping's resignation' and 'against dictatorship' also appear, China's zero-corona quarantine policy is facing the greatest crisis.



Beijing Correspondent Kim Ji-sung's report will be delivered first, and we will connect you locally.



<Reporter>



The Liangmahe area in the center of Beijing, where embassies from various countries are concentrated.



Hundreds of citizens chant 'No Dictatorship' and 'No Personal Cult'.



[We do not want a dictatorship!

We do not want personality worship!]



Following the slogan for the resignation of President Xi Jinping in Shanghai earlier,



[Xi Jinping step down!

Xi Jinping step down!]



Demonstrations were held in Beijing, the capital, to demand Xi Jinping's resignation.



A large number of police were dispatched to disperse, and they handcuffed and beat a British BBC reporter who was covering the incident.



The protest was triggered by a fire in a high-rise apartment building in Urumqi on the 24th, in which 10 people died.



Suspicion was raised that the apartment entrance and front door were controlled due to corona blockade, and fire suppression was delayed.



Protests at over 50 universities in China over the weekend have spread nationwide, including Wuhan, Chengdu, Nanjing and Guangzhou.



Protesters held a 'blank demonstration' in the sense of resisting censorship, and shouted for reform and people's livelihood.



Bloomberg News said it was a sign of unified resistance not seen since the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989.



As the sporadic corona blockade protests spread to President Xi Jinping's resignation protests, which were confirmed for the third consecutive month last month, Chinese authorities began to appease public sentiment.



Chinese state media all pointed out excessive quarantine measures and emphasized that there should be no inconvenience to ordinary people's lives.



State-run CCTV saw the image of the World Cup soccer crowd not wearing a mask as disturbing the Chinese and replaced it with another video.



China's high-intensity quarantine policy is facing the greatest crisis as it leads to 'public dissatisfaction' in which political, economic and social complaints are concentrated.



(Video coverage: Ma-gyu and Yu-yo, video editing: Kim Ho-jin, CG: Jo Soo-in, video source: Twitter)



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<Anchor>



Let's connect Beijing.

Correspondent Kim Ji-seong, why is the Chinese authorities insisting on a high-intensity quarantine policy for nearly three years when the backlash is so strong?



<Reporter> The



primary reason is the poor medical environment.



There are only 4 beds for severely ill patients in China, and the Chinese authorities believe that if the corona spreads to a huge population of 1.4 billion, it will not be able to handle it.



In addition, the vaccination rate of the elderly is low, and the controversy over the efficacy of Chinese vaccines continues.



Above all, the high-intensity quarantine policy, the so-called 'zero corona' policy, has been cited as one of President Xi Jinping's greatest achievements, so it is difficult to overturn it overnight.



For this reason, China has been waiting for the World Health Organization to declare the end of the corona or for a mutation with a lower fatality rate than Omicron to become the dominant species,


but it is not possible to do this as the number of corona 19 infections in China has soared recently.



<Anchor>



Can these anti-government protests continue for a while?



<Reporter>



Yes, even here in Beijing, there is a growing movement against the blockade of residences and the transfer to a group quarantine facility.



Complaints that have accumulated over the past three years since the spread of COVID-19 are erupting in earnest.



It's hard to watch, but the Chinese government's concerns are growing because the protests may spread further after starting to suppress it.



As the blockade area increases, the damage to Koreans is also increasing, and the Embassy in China revealed that about 30% of Koreans are affected by the blockade.



It is expected that the Chinese quarantine authorities will try to calm the public sentiment through a gradual containment easing policy rather than a full-scale lifting of the blockade.



(Video coverage: Choi Deok-hyun, video editing: Kim Byung-jik)