Chinese police search people's phones after anti-lockdown protests erupt across country

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Police on Monday stopped and searched people at the sites of weekend protests in Shanghai and Beijing, after crowds there and in other Chinese cities demonstrated against stringent COVID-19 measures disrupting lives three years into the pandemic.

From the streets of several Chinese cities to dozens of university campuses, protesters made a show of civil disobedience unprecedented since leader Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago. During his tenure, Xi has overseen the quashing of dissent and expansion of a high-tech social surveillance system that has made protest more difficult, and riskier.

"What we object to is these restrictions on people's rights in the name of virus prevention, and the restrictions on individual freedom and people's livelihoods," said Jason Sun, a college student in Shanghai.

There was no sign of new protests on Monday in Beijing or Shanghai, but dozens of police were in the areas where the demonstrations took place.

Police have been asking people for their phones to check if they have virtual private networks (VPNs) and the Telegram app, which has been used by weekend protesters, according to residents and social media users. VPNs are illegal for most people in China, while the Telegram app is blocked from China's internet.

Asked about widespread anger over China's zero-COVID policy, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian told reporters: "What you mentioned does not reflect what actually happened.

"We believe that with the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and co-operation and support of the Chinese people, our fight against COVID-19 will be successful."

The backlash against COVID-19 curbs is a setback for China's efforts to eradicate the virus, which is infecting record numbers after swaths of the population have sacrificed income, mobility and mental health to prevent it from spreading.

The zero-COVID policy has kept China's official death toll in the thousands, against more than a million in the United States, but has come at the cost of confining many millions to long spells at home, bringing extensive disruption and damage to the world's second-largest economy.

Abandoning it would mean rolling back a policy championed by Xi. It would also risk overwhelming hospitals and lead to widespread illness and deaths in a country with hundreds of millions of elderly and low levels of immunity to COVID-19, experts say.

The protests roiled global markets on Monday, sending oil prices lower and hammering Chinese stocks and the yuan.

State media did not mention the protests, instead urging citizens in editorials to stick to COVID-19 rules. Many analysts say China is unlikely to reopen before March or April, and needs an effective vaccination campaign before that.

"The demonstrations do not imminently threaten the existing political order, but they do mean the current COVID policy mix is no longer politically sustainable," analysts at Gavekal Dragonomics wrote in a note.