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China's protests: Blank paper becomes the symbol of rare demonstrations

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"So often one item comes to symbolise an entire protest movement. In China, that item is a humble piece of blank paper. As dusk fell on Shanghai on Sunday evening, some of those who gathered at a vigil to remember the victims of a fire that catalysed the demonstrations came clutching sheets of paper. "There was definitely nothing on the paper, but we know what's on there," a woman who joined protests in Shanghai told the BBC. The trend has its roots in the 2020 Hong Kong demonstrations, where locals held blank pieces of paper to protest against the city's draconian new national security laws. Activists held the paper aloft after authorities banned slogans and phrases associated with the mass protest movement of 2019 that saw the city grind to a halt and officials violently clamp down on demonstrators. The BBC's China correspondent Stephen McDonnell says the gesture is not only a statement about the silencing of dissent, but also "an up yours to the authorities, as if to say 'are you going to arrest me for holding a sign saying nothing?'" Demonstrators - hamstrung by Beijing's censorship machine - have also turned to other forms of anti-government expression, including sarcastic expressions of support for China's harsh Covid policies. In one case, after officials ordered dozens of white sheet sporting protesters to stop signing anti-lockdown slogans they responded with sarcastic chants of "more Lockdowns" and "I want to do a Covid test". But it is paper that has been the most common sight at Chinese demonstrations, joining such items as umbrellas (Hong Kong), rubber ducks (Thailand) and flowers (Belarus) as an emblem of modern protest." 11/28/22 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-63778871

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