WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th November, 2022) The United States supports the right of Chinese people to peacefully protest, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday.
"When it comes to protests that we are seeing in China ... our position is the same everywhere, which is that we support the right of people everywhere to peacefully protest," he said at a press conference with Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu.
Blinken is on a visit to Romania to take part in the NATO Ministerial and hold separate meetings with the alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
As of November 28, daily COVID-19 cases in China have been hitting record highs for several days in a row, with 40,347 cases registered in the past 24 hours.
Due to numerous local COVID-19 outbreaks and the deterioration of the epidemiological situation, Chinese authorities have introduced partial lockdowns in some areas, while also forcing their residents to undergo PCR testing on a daily basis. The restrictive measures have been tightened in a number of China's major cities, including Beijing and Shanghai.
The new restrictions have led to protests across the country. Public anger erupted after a fire occurred in a residential building in Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, killing 10 people on November 24. The tragedy sparked speculations that the deaths could have been avoided if the government had not imposed COVID-19 restrictions on the residential complex.
The regional authorities have launched an investigation into the deadly fire and vowed to bring those responsible to justice.
