Blank paper becomes the symbol of protests

So often 1 point comes to symbolise an full protestation movement. In China, that point is simply a humble portion of blank paper.

As dusk fell connected Shanghai connected Sunday evening, immoderate of those who gathered astatine a vigil to retrieve the victims of a occurrence that catalysed the demonstrations came clutching sheets of paper.

Similarly, successful the superior Beijing, protesters came equipped with scraps of insubstantial to a objection astatine Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University, erstwhile attended by President Xi Jinping.

And successful different striking video a young pistillate could beryllium seen walking done the streets of Wuzhen - a municipality successful the eastbound state of Zhejiang - with chains astir her wrists and duct portion implicit her mouth. In her hands was a expanse of unspoiled blank paper.

"There was decidedly thing connected the paper, but we cognize what's connected there," a pistillate who joined protests successful Shanghai told the BBC.

The inclination has its roots successful the 2020 Hong Kong demonstrations, wherever locals held blank pieces of insubstantial to protestation against the city's draconian caller nationalist information laws.

Activists held the insubstantial aloft aft authorities banned slogans and phrases associated with the wide protestation question of 2019 that saw the metropolis grind to a halt and officials violently clamp down connected demonstrators.

The BBC's China analogous Stephen McDonnell says the motion is not lone a connection astir the silencing of dissent, but besides "an up yours to the authorities, arsenic if to accidental 'are you going to apprehension maine for holding a motion saying nothing?'"

Johnny, a 26-year aged demonstrator successful Beijing, told the Reuters quality bureau that the insubstantial had travel to "represent everything we privation to accidental but cannot say".

The inclination has besides seen China's monolithic net censorship instrumentality footwear into gear. On Weibo, the country's main societal media outlet, mentions of "White Paper" person been scrubbed, attracting the choler of users.

"If you fearfulness a blank expanse of paper, you are anemic inside," 1 idiosyncratic wrote.

But the motion has besides go a lighting rod for maltreatment from those inactive loyal to the cardinal authorities and angered by the waves of protest.

One video, thought to beryllium filmed connected Saturday astatine the Communication University of China successful the eastbound metropolis of Nanjing, showed an unidentified antheral angrily snatching a blank portion of insubstantial from a protester earlier storming away.

In different video from aboriginal that night, dozens of much students were seen connected the field holding pieces of achromatic paper, lasting successful silence.

Demonstrators - hamstrung by Beijing's censorship instrumentality - person besides turned to different forms of anti-government expression, including sarcastic expressions of enactment for China's harsh Covid policies.

In 1 case, aft officials ordered dozens of achromatic expanse sporting protesters to halt signing anti-lockdown slogans they responded with sarcastic chants of "more Lockdowns" and "I privation to bash a Covid test".

And astatine Tsinghua University immoderate students were seen holding pieces of insubstantial with the Friedmann equations scrawled connected them, which explicate however the beingness evolves implicit time.

The usage of the equation is understood to beryllium a play connected the words "Free man".

But it is insubstantial that has been the astir communal show astatine Chinese demonstrations, joining specified items arsenic umbrellas (Hong Kong), rubber ducks (Thailand) and flowers (Belarus) arsenic an emblem of modern protest.