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Chinese Activists Around the World Protest Against Xi Jinping’s Lifetime Rule

Bryan Ke

Bryan Ke

March 9, 2018

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    Many posters have popped up in universities around the globe as a sign of protest from overseas Chinese students proclaiming Xi Jinping is not their president.

    The protest came following the massive announcement that China is planning to abolish its two-year presidential term limit, ultimately giving Xi the opportunity to rule the country indefinitely.

    Chinese students from overseas have created a poster – printed in both English and Chinese – expressing their disagreement to the plan to change China’s constitution as part of their movement, which presumably started on Twitter. The account, as of the time of writing, has already garnered 922 followers on the social mediate platform.

    “Xi Jinping is abolishing term limits of his presidency through Chinese rubber stamp legislative body. It is time to let him know that WE DISAGREE,” the text in the poster wrote.

    The text comes along with a hashtag #IDISAGREE, which is one of the many words that China banned on its own social media Weibo, according to Shanghaiist via Medium. Other banned words on Weibo include “1984,” “Animal Farm” and the Letter “N.”

    Posters have popped up across universities in the United States:

    Posters also popped up in universities in Canada:

    The movement also managed to cross the seas into the United Kingdom:

    And lastly, in Australia:

    The group also translated the poster in Spanish:

    While the group, who wishes to remain anonymous, promotes the use of their posters in several universities around the globe, they warned people from China to never use it in the country.

    “The single most important driving force behind China’s growth in the past 30 years has been the check on the party leader’s power on the institutional level,” the group told Foreign Policy. “It’s definitely not our wish that an unelected strongman become a de facto lifetime dictator.”

    The organizers worry that this decision could lead to yet another revolution in China, referring to the time when the country was plunge into chaos as party fanatics killed and imprisoned people across China.

    “We think a lot more attention should be paid to this proposal as it might plunge us into another round of the Cultural Revolution,” they said.

    Featured image via Twitter / @STOPXIJINPING

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