Anger at the excessive corona measures has been building in China for months.
At the weekend she erupted in protests.
It is no coincidence that the biggest and boldest demonstrations take place in Shanghai.
To this day, the city has not recovered from the trauma of spring's two-month full lockdown.
The speed with which the wave of protests has spread is likely to terrify the leadership.
Not since the pro-democracy movement of 1989 have there been so open calls for the leader's overthrow on China's streets.
However, it would be premature and probably wrong to believe that the still isolated actions could pose a serious threat to the communist regime.
The vast majority of demonstrators are demanding a relaxation of the corona measures and not the end of the Communist Party.
In any case, the events are putting head of state and party leader Xi Jinping to a new test.
It is to be feared that he will not stop at placating the angry public with concessions.
The country is probably facing a new wave of repression.
Those who called for Xi Jinping's resignation in Shanghai will no longer be able to sleep peacefully.
Then it will depend on whether the population allows itself to be intimidated.
Or whether the genie of the protest is out of the bottle.
The demonstrations were triggered by a high-rise fire in Urumqi.
That's no coincidence either.
The cases in which people lose their lives due to harsh and irrational corona measures have been piling up for months.
Whether that was the case here has not been proven.
But locked apartment doors and emergency exits are everywhere in China.
There is little hope that the dead will change anything about the excesses of the zero-Covid policy.
It has long since escalated into an obsession with control, from which there is no easy way out.