Commentary
The latest tumult from China is a microcosm of the past year. The People’s Liberation Army attacked across the de facto border into India, and swarmed the Philippine islands. Xi Jinping supposedly ended strict COVID-19 lockdowns due to the biggest protests since Falun Gong protesters surrounded the Chinese Communist Party’s Zhongnanhai leadership compound in 1999.
Inklings of hope emerged from the “white paper” protests, in which thousands of young people across China risked their lives to raise blank sheets of paper and signify their opposition to China’s lockdowns. Some called for Xi and the CCP to “step down.”…