crosspostato da: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/40512053

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Even as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has relentlessly suppressed free expression, the China Dissent Monitor (CDM)—Freedom House’s initiative to track dissent in the country—has revealed that protests take place regularly in every region of China. Marking its third year of research this June, CDM has documented more than 10,000 protest actions, ranging from rural residents protesting land development to nationwide demonstrations against the unprecedented social controls of the government’s zero-COVID-19 policy. The insights that CDM gains into protest actions often shed light on broader trends within China: for example, the recent increase in demonstrations against unscrupulous residential property management companies has exposed another layer of the country’s complex economic woes.

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CDM first observed an increase in labor protests—such as strikes over unpaid wages—in early 2023 after the end of pandemic controls. We predicted that these might be linked to a broader economic downturn in China. As the ensuing economic malaise has dragged on, CDM’s latest data suggest that labor dissent has indeed continued to rise; the 1,219 labor protests we documented in the first half of 2025 represent a 66 percent increase compared with the same period in 2024.

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China’s slowing economy has [also] prompted protests beyond those related to labor. Since CDM’s inaugural report, we’ve charted a steady rise in protests by homebuyers and homeowners amid a deepening financial crisis in China’s real-estate sector. [...] In [2024] we observed that, given the persistence of these protest events, the central government’s efforts to address problems in the real-estate sector through subsidies, loan programs, and other tools were proving inadequate.

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CDM’s latest data indicate that these trends have endured or even accelerated in recent months: we recorded 1,220 protests linked to the housing sector in the first half of 2025, double the number of events in the first half of 2023 or 2024. There has been a particularly sharp rise in homeowners protesting against the unscrupulous practices of property management companies—such as sudden price increases or the use of a community’s shared spaces for side businesses—with nearly the same number of events in the first six months of 2025 as in the previous two years combined.

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CDM research has identified [also] 85 protests led by consumers, investors, and small-business owners in the second quarter of 2025 represent a 200 percent year-on-year increase, extending an upward trend reported by CDM in Issue 9. Retiree protests over unpaid benefits or disfavored local-government policies have also persisted since CDM first reported on a relative increase in such events in 2023. These incidents are driven by sudden business closures, cash-strapped firms, and indebted local governments, suggesting that the impact of China’s economic pain may be broadening.

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While much of the dissent described so far is centered in urban areas, rural protest also appears to be climbing. [...] While the central government rolled out new rules in July 2024 to loosen restrictions on rural land use, CDM has documented a 44 percent rise in protests over land disputes since that month.

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CDM has observed numerous other protest movements that stretch across municipal and provincial boundaries, including those against corruption and malfeasance, stalled housing, and sexual harassment. Such movements show that even under enduring one-party authoritarianism, citizens in China are finding ways to link their acts of dissent through symbolism, without centralized coordination.

[...] As the CCP under Xi Jinping has deliberately dismantled civil society and movement networks over the past decade, patterns of dissent have become more difficult for anyone to detect—especially in China’s heavily manipulated media environment, where information about dissent is quickly deamplified or deleted. The ability to uncover and follow up on trends like those discussed here depends on regular monitoring and analysis of information from varied sources.

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