China’s elite Tsinghua University meets students after weekend protest against Covid restrictions
- After call for rule of law and freedom of expression, meeting canvasses issues around strict measures and Covid-related psychological stress
- But witness says students not satisfied by lack of clear-cut responses following long-term dissatisfaction over pandemic restrictions
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To placate the students, the university authorities held a meeting, both in-person and virtually, with students on Monday afternoon to discuss Covid-related measures, according to a Tsinghua student who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Guo Yong, the university’s deputy party secretary, had verbally promised to not hold any protesters responsible, and so far the unnamed student has not heard of anyone getting into trouble.
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“The school can only solve this [Covid-related] issue for us,” she said. “And nobody raised anything bigger [than Covid-19 measures].”
The meeting was held a day after a rare protest was staged on the campus of the university, alma mater of many political elites in the country, including President Xi Jinping.
In a video confirmed by a witness, a few hundred Tsinghua students gathered and chanted “democracy, the rule of law and freedom of expression”.
“The protest was directly triggered by the fire in Urumqi, but it was also because of long-term dissatisfaction over pandemic restrictions towards the government,” said the student, who was present at the meeting.
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At Tsinghua, students must undergo mass testing every day and can only leave campus under special circumstances, such as for a medical emergency.
The meeting on Monday afternoon discussed the potential for a makeshift hospital on campus and whether to quarantine close contacts of positive cases, as well as how to address psychological stress caused by restrictions and whether students could leave for home, according to minutes seen by the South China Morning Post.
But it did not entirely satisfy the students, according to the student present, who said the session comprised 90 minutes of administrators reading a press release followed by 20 questions from students that did not receive clear-cut responses.
“We [the students] talked about cancelling mass testing, but they never mentioned it, they only said they were considering cutting testing frequency,” the student said. “We also said tracing secondary contacts is against the 20-point policy, but the school did it anyway.”
The school also announced it would offer free cars to help students travel to Beijing airports and train stations to return home, even though the winter holiday period does not start until January.
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Tsinghua did not respond to an interview request.
Among the Communist Party alumni of the university are Chen Jining, the current party secretary of Shanghai and the former mayor of Beijing, who attended Tsinghua in the 1980s and served as its president from 2012 to 2015.
Chen Xi, the head of the Organisation Department and president of the Central Party School, is also a Tsinghua graduate.
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Authorities in Guangzhou have stopped requiring everyday testing for the elderly, students and freelancers who do not need to go outside. In Beijing, authorities said high-risk areas should be defined by units and buildings.
