China quashes social media posts about protest against Xi

China’s internet censors moved quickly to scrub social media posts Thursday after reports that banners criticising the Communist leadership were hung from a busy intersection in the capital Beijing.

Images on Twitter, which is blocked in China, showed smoke spiralling up from a fire on an elevated roadway and banners calling for an end to the hard-line “zero-COVID” policy and the overthrow of Communist Party leader and President Xi Jinping.

Political protest is rare in China, and police are on high alert this week in the run-up to a major Communist Party congress that opens Sunday.

There were no banners hanging from the roadway later in the day, but a circular black scar was visible on the shoulder area where the fire would have been.