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Stocks and oil slid sharply on Monday as the rare protests raised worries about the management of China’s zero-Covid policy and its impact on the world’s second-largest economy, while related images and posts.


During the weekend, protesters in cities including Wuhan and Lanzhou overturned Covid-19 testing facilities, while students gathered on campuses across China in actions that were sparked by anger over an apartment fire late last week in the far western city of Urumqi that killed 10 people.

The deadly fire fuelled speculation that Covid curbs in the city, parts of which had been under lockdown for 100 days, had hindered rescue and escape, which city officials denied. Crowds in Urumqi took to the street on Friday evening, chanting “End the lockdown!”, according to unverified videos on social media.

In Beijing, large crowds were gathered past midnight on Sunday telegram database along the capital’s 3rd Ring Road during peaceful but often impassioned scenes.

In the early hours of Monday, one group chanted “we don’t want Covid tests, we want freedom” while brandishing blank white pieces of paper, which have become a symbol of protest in China in recent days.

Cars that passed by regularly joined in the fanfare by honking their horns and giving thumbs up to protesters which in turn generated massive cheers from those gathered.

The protesters were trailed by dozens of uniformed police officers, with plain-clothes security personnel in among the crowd and police cars moving along nearby.

An official who said he was the head of Beijing’s police department came personally to speak to several of the protesters, holding a loudspeaker to plead with them to go home.