The demonstration over the weekend came as China deals with the consequences of last month’s sudden reversal of a zero-Covid policy that hit the country’s economic growth and led to deep public frustration.
China’s abrupt about-turn followed protests in several cities and universities against its zero-Covid approach.
For much of the past three years, Chinese authorities have tried to stamp out all traces of the virus, through mandatory quarantines, mass lockdowns and frequent testing of millions of people.
Such mass testing has relied on nucleic acid tests, and Chinese antigen test kits – which Zybio produces – have mainly been exported. But after China scrapped mass testing in early December, demand for antigen tests, which can be carried out at home, has soared.
Posts on social media alleged that Zybio had recruited staff in recent weeks, and then suddenly sacked them. The clash between police and protesters took place on Saturday night into Sunday morning, according to multiple social media users. On Sunday, searches for the clash appeared to be censored on the Twitter-like Sina Weibo platform.
Police, who used loudspeakers to tell protesters in the industrial park to “cease illegal activities” according to footage online, declined to comment.
The videos circulated on Sunday as China lifted almost all of its border restrictions, with foreign visitors and returning residents no longer having to undergo expensive and time-consuming quarantine. China also reopened its border with Hong Kong for the first time in three years, with Hongkongers travelling across the border to meet up with family members living on the mainland.
The moves come as China grapples with unprecedented infections and international accusations of a lack of transparency in case numbers, deaths and genetic sequencing data.
On Sunday, China’s National Health Commission reported just over 7,000 new cases and two deaths, even as individual provinces reported as many as one million cases per day.
China is now bracing for a further spread of the virus as the Lunar New Year travel period kicked off at the weekend. The 40-day travel period is traditionally the world’s largest annual migration as people return to their hometowns to celebrate.
