Warning from US embassy in China signals lockdowns are likely to intensify amid protests

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Nationwide protests continue in China over COVID lockdowns

Hoover Institution fellow Lanhee Chen provides analysis of the protests, which he noted are a "great personal risk" to the individuals involved.

The U.S. embassy in China released a statement Monday morning calling on U.S. citizens in the country to "keep a 14-day supply of medications, bottled water, and food for yourself and any members of your household."

"The People’s Republic of China (PRC) authorities have expanded COVID-19 prevention restrictions and control measures as outbreaks occur. These measures may include residential quarantines, mass testing, closures, transportation disruptions, lockdowns, and possible family separation. Ambassador Burns and other Mission officials have regularly raised our concerns on many of these issues directly with senior PRC officials and will continue to do so," the statement reads.

David Tafuri, a former State Department official and foreign policy adviser to the Obama campaign, says the State Department is trying to get ahead of the situation and prevent citizens from being caught up in a tense situation inside China.

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Shanghai residents record the scene, Nov. 26, 2022, as they mourn for the victims of a recent deadly fire in the Chinese city of Urumqi, which had been in partial lockdown for two months. (Chinatopix Via AP)

"I think this is a message to U.S. citizens in China that the State Department believes the combination of further anti-COVID measures and a potential crackdown on protesters by China could result in further lockdowns and travel bans that could put U.S. citizens at risk for arrest if they leave their homes," Tafuri said.

Tumultuous protests broke out in several Chinese cities over the country's "zero-COVID" policy and a deadly fire in a high-rise building that cost 10 people their lives.

The building, located in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang province, had been in partial lockdown for nearly two months.

Chinese police officers block off access to a site where protesters had gathered in Shanghai on Nov. 27, 2022. Protests against China's strict "zero-COVID" policies resurfaced in Shanghai and Beijing on Sunday afternoon, continuing a round of demonstrations that have spread across the country since a deadly apartment fire in the northwestern city of Urumqi led to questions over such rigid anti-virus measures. (AP Photo)

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Miles Yu, a senior fellow and director of the China Center at Hudson Institute, told Fox News Digital that the burning death of 10 people was a trigger for social uprisings, making them different from previous ones in the country.

"The previous [protests] are mostly people from the lower part of the social stratification — that is, the migrant workers. They are the social dispossessed. This time primarily is led by what you might call middle-class people who own properties," said Yu. He added that the recent protests "have a much broader base on the society."

Demonstrators are shown in Beijing on Nov. 27, 2022. Protesters angered by strict anti-virus measures called for China's powerful leader to resign as authorities in at least eight cities struggled to suppress demonstrations. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

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Tafuri says that "it’s very rare for there to be protests in mainland China over human rights, so this is worth watching to see if it catches on and results in sustained civil disobedience and demands for China to improve human rights."

Videos posted online showed police attacking and carrying away some protesters, but there seems to be no immediate response from President Xi Jinping or the Chinese Communist Party.

Tafuri predicts that the demonstration might result in some minor concessions by the CCP, but "ultimately, China is a police state with more than sufficient means and resources to put down these protests. My guess is that they will crack down on them before they let them spread further."

Yu warns that "it could be dangerous because it could give the protesters a false sense of triumph and so on … also it [could] lead the Chinese government to gather its strength and marshal means or assets."

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