Crowds of Chinese seniors have flocked to the streets once more to protest changes to their medical benefits.
They convened for the second time on Wednesday in Wuhan, where Covid was first discovered, as well as in the northeastern city of Dalian.
The second round of protests in seven days puts President Xi Jinping’s administration under strain, just weeks before the annual National People’s Congress, which will usher in a new leadership team.
Protests erupted in Wuhan on February 8 after provincial authorities announced a reduction in the number of medical expenditures that pensioners can claim from the government.
According to social media footage, the protesters are mostly senior retirees who believe this comes at a time of rising healthcare expenditures.
Although such health insurance issues are handled at the provincial level, protests have expanded across the country, indicating a resurgent trust in the power of demonstrating in China.
Thousands of young Chinese protested at the end of last year, eventually forcing the government to reverse its rigorous zero-Covid regulations – people had grown tired of the mass testing and sudden, sweeping lockdowns that had been destroying the economy.
However, the rapid policy change put China’s medical system under tremendous strain as the coronavirus spread throughout the country. It resulted in an undetermined number of deaths, and BBC reporting suggested that the vast majority of those who perished were old.
Social media videos showed senior protestors singing the Internationale, the global Communist anthem. This song has previously been used to demonstrate that demonstrators are not against the government or the Communist Party, but simply want their problems addressed.
