Eight Things Freedom House Has Learned About Protests in China
freedomhouse.org
Chinese authorities wield sophisticated, ever-evolving tools to suppress dissent and maintain what they call “social stability.” Citizens are protesting anyway. Sometimes, they even win.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/2595100

Archived link.

Despite increasingly repressive efforts to prevent free expression under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), dissent in China occurs regularly. Issue 8 of the China Dissent Monitor (CDM), released last week, marked two years of Freedom House’s efforts to monitor these protests. With 6,400 events logged, CDM’s second anniversary is a good occasion to reflect on what we’ve learned about who is protesting in China, what it looks like, where it’s happening, and how often. Here are eight key takeaways.

Dissident occurs regularly, and economic issues play a major role.

Documenting nearly 6,400 dissent events over two years.

  • CDM logged 805 dissent events in the second quarter of 2024, a 18 percent increase over the same period in 2023. The majority of events are labor (44 percent) and homeowner (21 percent) protests, with the remainder involving diverse groups like rural residents, students, parents, investors, consumers, members of religious groups, activists, Tibetans, ethnic Mongolians, and members of the LGBT+ community.

  • The top regions for protest events were Guangdong (13 percent), followed by Shandong, Hebei, Henan, and Zhejiang. CDM has logged a total of 6,300 cases of dissent since data collection began in June 2022.

  • Land grabs and corruption in rural China. CDM documented 228 protests led by rural residents over the past two years, most of which were linked to forced relocation and unfair land acquisition. These cases shed light on the corruption and discontent that arises from widespread land expropriation.

  • Over 2,800 protests linked to the struggling property sector. Dissent by homeowners and construction workers constitute 44 percent of all dissent cases in CDM’s database, reflecting the major impact of the real estate crisis on citizens’ livelihoods. Despite central government attempts to abate the sector’s collapse, CDM data indicates that protest frequency has not declined.

Here is the full China Dissent Monitor – (archived)