Quixplained: why demonstrators in China are holding white papers at Covid protests

Protestors in China have taken to streets to protest against stringent Covid-19 lockdown measures. The demonstrations began in Xinjiang province after a building fire killed 10 people last week.

According to reports, strict anti-Covid measures may have hampered escape routes for the deceased. Since then, China is seeing widespread protests with citizens taking to streets in large numbers.

There is one thing common in these protests.

Demonstrators have been seen holding blank, white sheets in their protest marches. The trend is rooted in 2020 Hong Kong protests when citizens used blank sheets to protest against the city's draconian new national security laws.

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After officials banned slogans and phrases associated with Hong Kong's 2019 mass protests, protestors took to blank sheets of papers to put across their discontent.

A BBC report says that according to some the act of holding white sheets is not just a statement about silencing of dissent but also poses a challenge to authorities asking, 'are you going to arrest me for holding a sign saying nothing?'

Protestors who joined the demonstrations told BBC, 'There was definitely nothing on the paper, but we know what's on there.'

Another protestor in Beijing told the Reuters news agency that the paper had begun to represent 'everything we want to say but cannot say'.

After the ongoing protests grabbed global attention, the security forces in the country were mobilised to end the demonstrations by strict patrolling on streets, checking cell phones of the protesters and warning them for their actions, CNN reported on Tuesday.

Demonstrators have also taken to other forms of anti-government dialogues using sarcastic expressions of support for China's hard Covid policies.

In one instance, demonstrators responded with sarcastic chants of 'more lockdowns' and 'I want to do a Covid test' after being ordered by officials to stop protesting using the blank white sheets.

Students protesting at Beijing's Tsinghua University were seen holding papers with Friedmann equations written on them, where the mathematician and physicist explains how the universe evolves over time.

The use of the equation is reported to be a play on the words "Free man".

But the visuals across the country are drowned in sights of blank sheets of paper accompanied by items like umbrellas in Hong Kong, rubber ducks in Thailand and flowers in Belarus as a sign of solidarity to the protests.