China

• The anti-lockdown protests going on in China are gaining momentum. The NYT described them as "the most defiant eruption of public anger against the ruling Communist Party in years," and China's currency and major stock indices are tumbling as investors panic.
• A Bloomberg op-ed pasted below assesses Pres. Xi's predicament: he'll need to respond to demonstrators' frustrations quickly, and an overzealous crackdown could risk sparking a bigger movement against him.
• The BBC said Chinese police arrested one of its accredited journalists at an anti-lockdown protest in Shanghai and beat him up in custody. China's foreign ministry says the journalist failed to identify himself as a reporter - as if it's ok for police to assault Brits without press credentials, but not those who present proper papers.
• Quartz pointed out that Apple's latest software update turned off the ability for iPhone users in China to keep their AirDrop settings open to accept incoming messages from "everyone" indefinitely. The feature that was disabled was a key tool Hong Kong protesters used to organize and communicate during demonstrations there, so the timing of its removal - only for users in China, and just weeks before an unprecedented wave of protests in China - is unfortunate.

Venezuela

• The U.S. apparently loosened restrictions on Chevron in response to an agreement the Venezuelan government and opposition signed in Mexico City. The deal they signed will unlock over $3 billion in frozen foreign assets for a UN-managed fund that will pay for health, food, and education programs in Venezuela.
• The new agreement also includes some non-specific conditions for presidential elections in 2024 and the release of hundreds of political prisoners - but the specifics of those questions weren't covered in Mexico City and will be addressed in future rounds of talks.

Somalia

• Somalia's army has stepped up its operations against Al Shabaab in recent weeks. It claimed to have killed 100 jihadis near Mogadishu this month.
• Al Shabaab responded by storming a hotel near the presidential palace and taking hostages.

Mexico

• Pres. AMLO marched with tens of thousands of his supporters in celebration of his fourth year in office. AMLO plans to run again in 2024 and is buying support with handouts like another significant wage increase in 2023.

Xi Jinping’s Dilemma: Placate or Crack Down on China’s Covid Protests (Bloomberg)
Beijing’s unsustainable pandemic strategy is finally reaching a tipping point as extraordinary demonstrations erupt around the country.
Author: Matthew Brooker is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering finance and politics in Asia. A former editor and bureau chief for Bloomberg News and deputy business editor for the South China Morning Post, he is a CFA charterholder.

The wave of protests that swept across major Chinese cities and university campuses this weekend is extraordinary. Demonstrations in the Communist Party-ruled nation are far from unknown, but they tend to be local, disparate and limited in scope. What sets these anti-Covid lockdown assemblies apart is that they represent a direct challenge to how the government is running the country. Such a large-scale and unified display of defiance has been unseen since the 1989 Tiananmen movement.

A video of one gathering in Shanghai showed a man shouting “Communist Party!” to a crowd that chanted in reply: “Step down!” “Xi Jinping!” the man shouted. “Step down!” others responded. Students at Tsinghua University in Beijing, an elite school that is Xi’s alma mater, cried “democracy and rule of law!” and held sheets of paper that were either blank or carried red exclamation marks, in a reference to online censorship. “We want freedom!” crowds in the southwestern city of Chengdu shouted. Such scenes may be commonplace in democracies where rights to demonstration and free expression are entrenched. They are astonishing in China, where the party has long experience in stamping out dissent and the space for critical voices has become even more constrained during Xi’s decade-long tenure.

The immediate questions, then, from such an open challenge to the party’s authority are: Why now, what does it mean, and where will this lead? The first is the easiest to answer. Quite simply, after almost three years of repeated lockdowns, disruptions to daily life and loss of basic freedoms, people have had enough of Covid Zero. The strategy, to which Xi has attached his personal prestige, appeared to draw strong public support as China’s death toll from Covid-19 remained far below those of Western countries. It has become unsustainable, though; more infectious strains of the disease have raised the economic cost and practical challenges of eradicating outbreaks, just as the population wearies of the policy.

The trigger for the protests was a fire in Urumqi, capital of the far western region of Xinjiang, that is reported to have killed at least 10 people. Pictures circulated online showed the building’s exits sealed with wires. Local officials said these were fake, but the very idea will have been chilling for millions who have endured similar treatment. Shanghai underwent a brutal lockdown earlier this year, with many residents barricaded inside their apartment blocks and subjected to heavy-handed behavior by white hazmat-suited workers. The Shanghai demonstration began as a vigil in sympathy for the Urumqi victims, held on a road named after the Xinjiang city.

Even without the blaze, there were signs of a tipping point approaching. It’s unlikely a coincidence that frustration bubbled over just as China has begun to ease back on some of its most draconian restrictions. Earlier this month, the government released a list of 20 guidelines designed to lessen the economic and social impact, such as cutting the isolation period for close contacts. The relaxation didn’t meet the public’s expectations, perhaps due partly to overstretched local officials failing to implement directives.

This illustrates the dilemma for an authoritarian system that decides to loosen its grip: Like a crack opening in a dam, the suppressed pressure builds quickly. The result is a perilous situation, to which the government will need to respond quickly. A swift adjustment that allows people on the ground to feel the promised easing of controls may be enough to defuse this outburst. The longer the unrest goes on, the more it spreads, and — above all — the more overtly it targets the party and Xi, the greater the chance of a severe crackdown that would deal a blow to an already-weakened economy and further damage investor confidence.

Xi’s instincts are to be uncompromising in dealing with any challenge to the party’s grip on power. Just look at Hong Kong, which has had the freedoms it was promised it could keep for 50 years substantially quashed since anti-government demonstrations in 2019. There was more than one echo of Hong Kong in the mainland gatherings — from the blank placards, to the use of iPhone torches, to renditions of Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables. That will have raised the alarm level in Beijing, for which the specter of organized opposition around a unifying theme is the ultimate bugbear.

The risk is that a harsh approach generates its own reaction, trapping the country in a loop of escalating repression and resistance. That’s unlikely. The party has long experience of neutering potential challenges, and today’s China is far from the liberal intellectual climate that allowed the Tiananmen movement to flourish. Let’s not forget, though: A single spark can start a prairie fire, as Mao Zedong once wrote, citing an ancient proverb. No one knows that better than the Communist Party.