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Notes -
Chinese protests are a top story in Western news media. I don't think they're entirely organic. Some are likely intelligence agency ops.
Here's the first thing that made me think something was off: https://twitter.com/quanyi_li2/status/1596784472740937728
First, some of the signage doesn't look right. They use traditional characters instead of simplified. They also sometimes use pinyin, seemingly unable to recall the "qi" in "Urumqi," the biggest city in Xinjiang, even as they were protesting on Urumqi road. Mainlanders wouldn't do this. This is beyond mere misspelt Tea Party protest signs, I'd say it's akin to protesting against Biden with an English-language sign with Cyrillic characters accidentally slipped in. It's a clear signal of "not from around here."
Second, the protests don't make much sense if your goal is to reach other Chinese folks in China. You can't share such protests on social media, and news agencies won't cover them. However, contrary to popular narratives, demonstrations are allowed in China. You can't call for the downfall of the national government, but you can plea for the national government to come in and fix local issues. You can also take to the streets because you're really worked up about foreigners insulting China.
So, the intended audience is probably Western news media and consumers of such media.
Third, advocating against the national government and leaders is punished, and everyone knows it. It's unlikely that Chinese citizens would take such a risk when it's so easy to put on a demonstration that falls short of impugning the national government. I think it's likely that these were non-citizens, perhaps Taiwanese, or perhaps expats, that aren't risking their livelihoods. The use of traditional characters makes this more likely, only Hong Kong and Taiwan use them. Western media are unlikely to take note of such things, or to take note of Taiwanese accents.
This aligns with what we've seen before in intelligence ops.
We've seen evidence that intelligence agencies have helped along color revolutions in the past, including protest leaders in Hong Kong meeting with at least one state department official. Much of this is actually done in the open, with the National Endowment for Democracy sending money directly to dissident groups.
Note that an intelligence op doesn't mean that everyone involved works for the intelligence agency, or that they even know that the agency is involved. Every country has its collection of folks who would like to see the government fall. Intelligence operatives identify and befriend these folks, nurture their revolutionary sentiments, and help to remove hurdles in their way. It's the same tactic used to get a group of right-wing men to agree to kidnap the governor of Michigan, except that no one stops the plot from continuing to move forward.
Any time anything like this happens in China or Ukraine or whatever, it's always "foreign operatives" or whatever. The locals never have any agency of course.
From this video in Beijing (亮马桥 area), we can see：
first ~10 seconds: the first person (with masked) with the microphone is asking the crowd to be careful as there a foreign anti-Chinese forces among them (“现在，在我们群众当中，有境外反华势力，在我们周围“）
People start yelling "we are all Chinese people / citizens" (“我们都是中国人”）
at the 0:24 mark, a second person (shorter, no mask, glasses) now has the mic, who asks: "Are Marx and Engels the foreign forces you speak of? ... (crowd repeats) Is it Lenin?" (“请问，你说的境外势力是马克思和恩格斯吗？是列宁吗？”）
0:33 mark: the first speaker responds (without the mic, with his hands up) that he will forever love his country and its people.
0:40 mark: the first person continues that he also thinks the current policies have issues ("我也觉得现在的政策有问题，我真的觉得有问题“）before getting cutoff by the crowd for trying to change the topic ("不要转移话题“）
0:51: "Question: was the fire in Xinjiang started by foreign forces?" (the fire in Wulumuqi that killed people) (“请问新疆的火是境外势力放的吗？”)
0:56: "Was the bus in Guizhou crashed by foreign forces?" (”贵州的大巴是境外势力推翻的吗？” )
1:01: person in white jacket takes the mic and asks in the most Beijing accent: "everyone, was I called here by foreign forces?" ("大家我是境外势力叫来的吗？“ ) - crowd: "no!!"
1:05: "we can't even go onto foreign websites, how could we be foreign forces? How can foreign forces communicate with us?" ("我们连网都上不了国外的，我们哪儿来的境外势力？境外势力怎么跟我们沟通？“
1:13: glasses guy takes the mic again: "we only have domestic forces that prevent us from gathering" (“我们只有境内势力不让我们聚集”)
Anyway you get the gist. The glasses guy was later interviewed by Japanese television, and his whole emphasis is "I could be the next Xinjiang fire or Guizhou bus crash".
This seems cherry-picked. If you look at the videos from the 2am Wulumuqi protest, there weren't much signage at all. Most of the protests after have been using the blank A4 paper. You see that in the video I linked above.
Just because they know censorship exists doesn't mean they never protest. Plus most of the protest isn't calling for the downfall of the government (tho some exists).
If you listen to the slogans, they aren't calling for the downfall of the government. They are saying stuff like 不要核酸要吃饭 不要封控要自由 (Don't wanna nucleic test I want to eat, don't want lockdowns want freedom).
(And yes I was at an anti-Japanese march in Shanghai a long time ago. It seemed ironic to be yelling anti-Japanese slogans as you walk near the Japanese Consulate, and then drinking your Kirin beverage (but that's just me))
In a country of 1.3 billion or whatever the number, there are weird shit that happens all the time. I can tell you with confidence that the 2am protest in Shanghai was majority local Chinese, mostly young people. This was in the former french concession (trendy place to live) so there were some foreigners there (I may or may not have been there), but all expat groups and group chats on wechat etc have been warned not to participate in these, precisely because you dont wanna be a random white guy photographed in the crowd and then used as "see, this is foreign forces!". And you don't wanna be deported and all that.
And by the way the twitter account you linked is ... questionable.
I observed this as well. I follow Daryl Cooper and he goes on and on how everything that happened in Russia since downfall of Soviet Union has imprint of USA. Russian economy was ruined by US corporations, their peaceful attempts such as Partnership for Peace was dashed by the likes of Allbright and Kissinger and their pawns like Václav Havel or Lech Wałęsa. Expansion of NATO basically forced Russia into hot wars, they had no other choice. Even recent analysis like Nordstream 2 pipeline explosion - Cooper's theory is that Biden was blackmailed by intelligence community to blow up the pipeline - because there is no possible explanation for why Putin or anybody else would ever do it, there is quite a remarkable absence of imagination regarding Putin and his convoluted gang of goons, given what convoluted stories Cooper can create when it comes to US actions. And my speculation is that even if Putin actually ordered it a new narrative would be created how it is ultimately just result of America's shady plays behind the curtain.
There is never any agency of 7.7 billion people in the World, everything that ever happens is orchestrated by this one nation of 300 million. It seems like a sort of strange and perverse version of American exceptionalism - yes we are the most powerful nation that ever was and we are behind everything, only we are the bad guys. Which is BTW a strangely common thread with the wokes, only they see immense power of Western White Males everywhere in the world throughout whole history. It is quite a weird fetish.
Also for everybody else, I follow The China Show podcast of two expats who lived in China for over a decade and who have a lot of contacts still in there. They covered the topic extensively during last episode, it is worth a watch.
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