Chinese man staged rare protest before big military parade

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By Laurie Chen

BEIJING (Reuters) -A Chinese man staged a rare protest days before President Xi Jinping hosted global leaders for a military parade in Beijing by projecting anti-Communist slogans onto a building in a city in southwestern China, social media footage showed.

Giant slogans saying “only without the Communist Party can there be a new China” and “down with red fascism, overthrow Communist tyranny” were projected onto a skyscraper in Chongqing, clips circulated on X and verified by Reuters showed.

A post by overseas dissident Li Ying that featured the video was viewed 18 million times, according to a counter on X.

A separate video published on X and verified by Reuters showed policemen on August 29 bursting into the empty hotel room where the projector was stationed.

A 43-year-old Chongqing native named Qi Hong told the New York Times that he had set up the projector in August, before leaving China with his wife and daughters.

He said the projector and a surveillance camera inside the hotel room that filmed the police entering were operated by him remotely from Britain, and that the images were beamed for 50 minutes before police found the projector.

China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters could not reach Chongqing public security bureau for comment and was unable to contact Qi.

The protest took place days before the military parade in Beijing which was designed to project Xi’s power.

“The real significance lay in the continued willingness of fearless citizens to boldly and publicly criticize Chinese leader Xi Jinping and call for democratic reforms in the face of ever-growing government repression,” Maya Wang, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

FORMER MIGRANT WORKER

Qi told the New York Times he was inspired by other protests including a 2022 banner protest in Beijing before a major Communist Party meeting and nationwide “white paper” anti-government protests against COVID restrictions the same year.

Qi said he was for many years a drifting migrant worker in southern China, where he endured mistreatment and occasional detentions by police, before moving to Beijing and starting a small e-commerce business.

He said he became disillusioned with the government during strict pandemic lockdowns and wanted to protest against “blind patriotic education” in schools.

Patriotic education is mandated by law as part of China’s school curriculum, where students learn about topics including the Communist Party’s achievements and national security.

Qi said his brother and elderly mother, who remain in China, were threatened by police after the incident.

Images from the protest did not circulate on domestic Chinese social media, which is censored.

Public protests against the Communist Party are extremely rare, partly due to surveillance, online censorship and the government’s dismantling of free speech and grassroots activism.

(Reporting by Laurie Chen and Beijing newsroom; Editing by Antoni Slodkowski and Timothy Heritage)