BEIJING/SHANGHAI – An online call for anti-government protests across China on Sunday instead brought an emphatic show of force by police determined to deter any buds of the kind of unrest that has shaken the Middle East.
Lines of police checked passers-by and warned away foreign photo journalists in downtown Beijing and Shanghai after a US-based Chinese website spread calls for Chinese people to emulate the “Jasmine Revolution” sweeping the Middle East and stage gatherings in support of democratic change.
Officials from China’s ruling Communist Party have dismissed the idea that they could be hit by protests like those that have rippled across the Middle East. But a rash of detentions and censorship of online discussion of the Middle East have shown that Beijing is deeply nervous about any signs of opposition to its one-party rule.
What started as a call for protest has instead become an opportunity for the Chinese government to brandish the big and sophisticated security forces funded by rapid economic growth.
