The Chinese cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing announced the easing of COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday, a day after protesters in Guangzhou clashed with police amid a series of protests against the world’s toughest coronavirus measures, Reuters and News.ro reported .

The southwestern city of Chongqing will allow people in close contact with COVID-19 who meet certain conditions to be quarantined at home, a city official said.

Guangzhou, which is near Hong Kong, also announced an easing of restrictions, but the area where violence erupted on Tuesday remained under tight control.

In addition to easing restrictions in Guangzhou and Chongqing, officials in Zhengzhou, home to a large Foxconn factory that makes Apple iPhones and which has been the scene of worker protests, announced an “orderly” resumption of business activity, including supermarkets, gyms and restaurants.

National health officials said China would respond to “urgent concerns” expressed by the public and that the rules on COVID should be applied more flexibly depending on regional conditions.

The protests that gripped Shanghai, Beijing and other parts of China on Monday are an unprecedented display of public defiance since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012.

Will the death of Jiang Zemin give a boost to the protesters in China?

But with a record number of cases across the country, the prospect of a major turnaround in the “zero COVID-19” policy, which President Xi says saves lives and has been touted as one of his political achievements, looks dim.

Some protesters and foreign security experts believe the death of former President Jiang Zemin on Wednesday could give new impetus to protests after three years of the pandemic.

Jiang Zemin ruled the country for a decade after suppressing the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and brought China rapid economic growth.

Unlike Xi, Jiang was a valuable leader given his demonstrated ability on the international stage and his relative openness to the West.

Jiang’s legacy has been debated in protest groups on Telegram.

“How similar the story is,” one protester wrote in one post, referring to former Chinese Communist Party general secretary Hu Yaobang, whose death in April 1989 was seen as one of the factors that sparked nationwide protests that year.

Protests and repression in China

In a video posted on Twitter, dozens of commandos, wearing white protective suits and holding shields on their heads, advanced in formation through what appeared to be broken isolation barriers as various objects flew at them.

Police were later seen escorting a line of people in handcuffs. Another video shows people throwing objects at police officers, while a third video shows a tear gas canister falling in the middle of people on a narrow street as they run to escape the gas.

Reuters has verified and says the video was shot in Guangzhou’s Haizhou district, where social unrest broke out two weeks ago due to restrictions imposed by COVID-19, but could not determine when the footage was shot or the exact sequence of events and what sparked the clashes.

However, social media posts claim the clashes took place on Tuesday evening and were sparked by a new row over isolation restrictions.

At least 27 demonstrations were held in China between Saturday and Monday, according to China Dissent Monitor, an organization funded by the US government, Freedom House.

According to the Australian think tank ASPI, 43 protests were held in 22 cities. But, if the relaxation of some measures looks like an attempt to calm the public, the authorities have simultaneously started looking for those who participated in the protests.

China’s Communist Party speaks of “decisive measures”

“The police came to my door to ask me about all this and make me fill out a written report,” a Beijing resident told Reuters on Wednesday.

Another resident said that several friends who posted videos of the protests on social networks were taken to the police station and asked to sign a pledge not to do it again.

China will take decisive action against “infiltration and sabotage by enemy forces,” the Communist Party’s top law enforcement agency said in a statement, which did not mention the protests.

The Central Political and Legal Commission also stated that “illegal and criminal actions that violate public order” will not be tolerated.