We’ve just left a major Chinese city after spending a day filming a story about a Covid outbreak. Less than 3 hours later our locally hired driver was taken into the police station and told he couldn’t leave until revealing what he was doing with foreign media.

Meet the gang of 6 that is following me and ⁦Simon Leplâtre⁩ in #Guiyang. ‘We are looking out for your safety’. ‘Are you police?’ ‘No.’ ‘So who are you?’ ‘I can’t say.’

“It’s maybe 10 steps forward and nine steps back."

This is now on Wulumuqi (=Urumqi) lu in #Shanghai. People holding up white sheets of paper. ‘We don’t need to write anything on it. It is a symbol of the revolution of the people’, someone says. (Don’t manage to send videos.)

The deadly fire in Urumqi appeared to crystallize public anger over those pressures. “Before I felt I was a coward, but now at this moment I feel I can stand up.” nytimes.com/2022/11/26/wor…

Urumqi fire has unleashed defiant eruption of public anger against the CCP. Thousands gathered with candles to mourn the victims. Students staged vigils, many holding pieces of blank white paper in mute protest. w/Chris Buckley 儲百亮 Vivian Wang Chang Che Muyi Xiao nytimes.com/2022/11/27/wor…

Interesting analysis of why the protests we’ve seen in cities across China this past weekend are different from earlier protests

When a picture is worth a thousand words. Sunday afternoon’s protest in Shanghai. Source: AP via a protester

Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai Communist kingpin who was handpicked to lead China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and presided over a decade of meteoric economic growth, died on Wednesday. He was 96. nytimes.com/2022/11/30/obi…

What an explanation: “If the trial is to be conducted with a jury, there is a real risk that the due administration of justice might be impaired.”

“There isn’t enough work for everyone...You can’t go to bed every night having to look for work in the morning. It’s too tiring.”

“I never thought if you had a debacle like this, they wouldn’t let you withdraw your funds.”

Nobel laureate & Rappler CEO Maria Ressa holds back tears as she celebrates her court victory today. “Today, facts win, truth wins, justice wins,” adds her acquittal isn’t just for Rappler “but for every Filipino who has ever been unjustly accused.” The Straits Times

In early December, China dismantled its “zero-COVID” policy. Within a month, the virus was everywhere. Sixth Tone’s Beimeng traveled to remote villages in the southwestern province of Sichuan, where she witnessed firsthand how the virus surge has inundated local hospitals.

First day back at work following parental leave and trying out Twitter .. erm X? ... again. Anything much happened on here??