Is China Entering a New Era of Political Protest?

In mainland China, it is extremely rare to see protests that are explicitly anti-CCP, anti-Xi Jinping, or against the existing political system. Recent developments, however, suggest that the number of such protests is increasing.

Representative cases have occurred recently in Jiangyou City, Sichuan Province, and in the city of Chongqing. In the first case, a campus bullying incident, compounded by a series of improper responses from the school and local government, ultimately escalated into a large-scale protest by local residents. This led to direct violent clashes with local law enforcement. A large number of police and armed police carried out almost indiscriminate beatings and arrests. Those affected included minors and elderly people who were observing or trying to assist others. While protests of this kind are not uncommon in China, it is extremely rare for participants to chant slogans such as “Return our democracy.”

By contrast, the protest in Chongqing was extraordinarily rare because it directly challenged the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. When enormous banners calling for the overthrow of the CCP and the recovery of freedoms and rights were projected onto building walls in Chongqing University Town at night, many people were shocked. These two seemingly unrelated events point to a common underlying issue — the undemocratic political system.

Statistics from the Chinese Data Monitoring (CDM) project show that since its launch in 2022, the number of recorded protest events in mainland China has risen rapidly. In the first half of 2025, nearly 3,000 protest events were recorded, representing an increase of almost 75% compared with the same period in 2024. Labor protests remain the most common type, rising by 67%, while housing-related protests — primarily initiated by unpaid construction workers, contractors, or homebuyers whose projects were unfinished — have doubled. These numbers are almost certainly underreported, as many incidents are censored before researchers can track them.