China quashes social media about protest banners in Beijing

By DAKE KANG
Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — China’s internet censors have moved quickly to scrub social media posts after reports that banners criticizing the Communist leadership were hung from a busy intersection in Beijing. Images on Twitter, which is blocked in China, showed smoke spiraling 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 President Xi Jinping. The Associated Press could not verify the authenticity of the images, but the road was scarred in the area where the fire would have been. 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.