Protesters call for Xi to resign amid unprecedented unrest over China's COVID-19 measures

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Protesters angered by strict COVID-19 measures called for China's powerful leader to resign, a rare rebuke as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to suppress demonstrations Sunday that represent a rare direct challenge to the ruling Communist Party.

The wave of civil disobedience is unprecedented in mainland China since President Xi Jinping assumed power a decade ago, as frustration mounts over his signature zero-COVID policy nearly three years into the pandemic. The COVID-19 measures are also exacting a heavy toll on the world's second-largest economy.

The protests — which began Friday and have spread to cities including the capital, Beijing, and dozens of university campuses — are the most widespread show of opposition to the ruling party in decades.

Police using pepper spray drove away demonstrators in Shanghai who called for Xi to step down and an end to one-party rule, but hours later people rallied again in the same spot. Police again broke up the demonstration, and a reporter saw protesters under arrest being driven away in a bus.

In a video of the protest in Shanghai verified by The Associated Press, chants against Xi, the most powerful leader since at least the 1980s, and the Chinese Communist Party sounded loud and clear: "Xi Jinping! Step down! CCP! Step down!" People also held up blank sheets of paper as an expression of protest.

A large crowd also gathered in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu, according to videos on social media, where they also held up blank sheets of paper and chanted: "We don't want lifelong rulers. We don't want emperors," a reference to Xi, who has scrapped presidential term limits.

At the campus of Beijing's Tsinghua University, a large crowd gathered, according to images and videos posted on social media. Some people also held blank sheets of paper.

In the central city of Wuhan, where the pandemic began three years ago, videos on social media showed hundreds of residents take to the streets, smashing through metal barricades, overturning COVID-19 testing tents and demanding an end to lockdowns.

Other cities that have seen public dissent include Lanzhou in the northwest, where residents on Saturday overturned COVID-19 staff tents and smashed testing booths, posts on social media showed. Protesters said they were put under lockdown even though no one had tested positive.

The current protests erupted after a fire broke out Thursday, killing at least 10 people in an apartment building in the city of Urumqi in the northwest, where some have been locked in their homes for four months. 

That prompted an outpouring of angry questions online about whether firefighters or people trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other restrictions.

Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference on Saturday to deny that pandemic measures had hampered escape and rescue efforts.

Three years after COVID-19 emerged, China is the only major country still trying to stop transmission of COVID-19. Its "zero COVID" strategy has suspended access to neighbourhoods for weeks at a time. Some cities carry out daily virus tests on millions of residents.