How common are protests in China?

Editor’s note (November 28th): This article has been updated.

ON NOVEMBER 24th a fire in an apartment building in Urumqi, a city in far-west China, killed ten people. Many blamed strict covid-19 restrictions for the death toll. Protests against lockdown controls have since spread across China. Over the weekend of November 26th and 27th thousands of people gathered in Beijing, Shanghai and other cities to protest against lockdown restrictions that over the past three years have confined millions to their homes or workplaces, often for long periods. Some of the protests are explicitly political and take aim at China’s president. In Shanghai people chanted “Down with Xi Jinping!”, an unprecedented call for regime change. Kevin Slaten, a researcher at Freedom House, an American think-tank, has counted 27 protests between November 25th and 27th across 15 regions of China.