Protests against banks were raging for weeks since depositors were unable to withdraw their savings from the institutions. Only a few have received payments with the majority of people worried over frozen funds. They fear the banks will be unable to return their money and that authorities are trying to keep the lid on a scandal.
The protests had been sporadically happening since April until they grew in frequency and scale. Earlier this month a large protest by depositors was crushed by a mob of men in plainclothes believed to be the police.
The protests snowballed after the depositors, who were first told that their funds were frozen due to a systems upgrade, learned of reports of wrongdoing at the banks. They were also thwarted from reaching Henan’s capital Zhengzhou for protests in surreptitious ways. Depositors who had visited Zhengzhou once were barred from entering again because their Covid infection status had turned red. China apparently employed its Covid tracking tech to push back protesters, depositors allege.
The attempt to muzzle protests and even go to the extent of deploying tanks against…
