Issue 1: June-September 2022

Highlights

• Nationwide, real-world protests: 668 dissent events have been documented for the period of June to September 2022.
• Among them, 636 cases (95 percent) occurred offline, such as demonstrations, strikes, and occupations, while 32 cases (5 percent) involved online dissent. The greatest number of events occurred in the provinces of Hebei (77), Henan (72), Guangdong (49), and Shaanxi (49).
• Thousands of participants: 60 percent of offline events had 10 to 99 participants, 18 percent had 2 to 9 participants, and 7 percent had 100 to 999. At least 8,755 people have cumulatively participated in offline dissent during the time period we assessed.
• Top issues: Among all documented cases, 214 (32 percent) involved delayed housing projects, 110 (17 percent) involved pay and benefits, and 106 (16 percent) involved fraud. There were 37 cases of dissent against COVID-19 restrictions, including large street demonstrations and online hashtag movements with hundreds of thousands of posts, linked to at least 14 provinces or directly administered cities.
• Repression in at least a quarter of cases: The project documented evidence of repression in 25 percent of dissent events. Violence by state or nonstate actors against those engaged in dissent was the most frequent form of reprisal, occurring in 75 cases.
• Targets and concessions: Companies (64 percent) and local governments (33 percent) are much more likely to be the target of dissent than the central government (3 percent). The project documented 37 cases that led to some type of concession by the government or a company, such as local governments changing policies after citizens protested.
• Featured analysis: Homeless home buyers: Stalled housing projects and mortgage boycotts; Real-name Complaints: A decentralized, cross-province movement.