The U.S. embassy in China released a statement calling on its citizens in the country to “keep a 14-day supply of medications, bottled water, and food for yourself and any members of your household,” on Monday morning.
“The People’s Republic of China (PRC) authorities have expanded COVID-19 prevention restrictions and control measures as outbreaks occur. These measures may include residential quarantines, mass testing, closures, transportation disruptions, lockdowns, and possible family separation. Ambassador Burns and other Mission officials have regularly raised our concerns on many of these issues directly with senior PRC officials and will continue to do so,” read the statement.
David Tafuri, a former State Department official and foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, says the State Department is trying to get ahead of the situation and prevent citizens from being caught up in a tense situation inside China.
PROTESTS RATTLE CHINA AS PEOPLE SAY ENOUGH TO COUNTRY’S DRACONIAN COVID LOCKDOWN POLICIES
Residents record the scene as they mourn for the victims a recent deadly fire in Urumqi city, which had been in partial lockdown for two months, in Shanghai, China Saturday, Nov. 26, 2022.
(Chinatopix Via AP)
“I think this is a message to U.S. Citizens in China that the State Department believes the combination of further anti-COVID measures and a potential crackdown on protesters by China could result in further lockdowns and travel bans that could put U.S. citizens at risk for arrest if they leave their homes,” added Tafuri.
Tumultuous protests broke out in several Chinese cities over the country’s “zero-COVID” policy and a deadly fire in a high-rise building that cost 10 people their lives.
The building, located in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, had been in partial lockdown for nearly two months.
CHINESE POLICE GET VIOLENT AS COVID-19 LOCKDOWN PROTESTS SWEEP ACROSS THE COUNTRY
Miles Yu, a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital that the burning death of 10 was a trigger for social uprisings, making them different from previous ones in the country.
“The previous [protests] are mostly people from the lower part of the social stratification. That is, the migrant workers. They are the social dispossessed. This time primarily is led by what you might call middle-class people who own properties,” shared Yu. He added the recent protests “have a much broader base on the society.”
Demonstrators in Beijing, Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022. Protesters angered by strict anti-virus measures called for China’s powerful leader to resign, as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to suppress demonstrations.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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Tafuri says “it’s very rare for there to be protests in mainland China over human rights so this is worth watching to see if it catches on and results in sustained civil disobedience and demands for China to improve human rights.”
Videos posted online showed police attacking and carrying away some protesters, but there seems to be no immediate response from President Xi Jinping or the Chinese Communist Party.
Tafuri predicts the demonstration might result in some minor concessions by the CCP, but “ultimately, China is a police state with more than sufficient means and resources to put down these protests. My guess is that they will crack down on them before they let them spread further.”
Yu warns “it could be dangerous because it could give the protesters a false sense of triumph and so on… also it [could] lead the Chinese government to gather its strength and marshal means or assets.”
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