• Fans say, foreign forces are behind the recent protests across the country.
• The largest anti-Party protests in decades spread to various cities over the weekend.
• Substantial police presence in key areas may have reduced protester numbers.

“Whoever brings in outsiders is a traitor!”

“The demonstration was apparently organized by the U.S. Foreign Ministry.”

“External forces might mislead you. Always love your nation!”

On Weibo, these comments are common.

Many users, from those with a few “fans” to those with millions, say “foreign forces” are behind the recent protests across the country.

The greatest show of dissent to China’s ruling Communist Party in decades expanded to multiple cities over the weekend.

Low temperatures and substantial police presence in key areas may have reduced protester numbers.

Chinese officials have not explicitly commented on these events, but they have warned that “foreign forces” threaten national security and interfered in Hong Kong democracy protests.

Ren Yi, the grandson of Communist Party leader Ren Zhongyi, has repeated this warning.

Ren Yi’s Weibo account, Chairman Rabbit, has nearly 2 million followers.

In a recent piece, he questions “what do overseas anti-China forces most seek” from the protests and why did “foreign forces… raise a fuss and then retreat”

Yu Li, whose Weibo username is Sima Nan and has 3.16 million fans, quips that he thanks foreign troops for interfering in the protests.

If the CIA or National Endowment for Democracy has a Beijing office, please tell me the address and contact information.

Weibo users claim the CIA is behind the protests.

A screenshot of a news article saying the CIA wants more Chinese speakers is extensively disseminated.

Another widely shared image shows a BBC cameraman being seized by Chinese authorities during protests.

Officials arrested Ed Lawrence “for his own good” in case he caught COVID from the crowd. He was beaten and imprisoned for hours.

One user who shared a photo of Mr. Lawrence dubbed him a “little moron” and said, “foreign forces shouldn’t engage in internal problems.”

This screenshot for Beijing, a comparable city in prominence and population, received approximately 40 million clicks.

Weibo says content is monitored and may be removed.

In addition to deleting content, social media is flooded with junk about the protests.

Benjamin Strick, investigations director at the Centre for Information Resilience, found more than 3,000 tweets with protest hashtags.

In a few hours I pulled 3000+ tweets using China location tags #北京, #杭州 & #重庆. These tags are dens of spam.

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Red lines indicate interactions between accounts (generally normal activity). Orange nodes are lone accounts, almost all of which spam the tags with dating ads. https://www.bolnews.com/world/2022/11/chinas-social-media-blames-america-for-recent-uprisings/amp/ pic.twitter.com/7WK1PzDik2

— Benjamin Strick (@BenDoBrown) November 29, 2022

3pm local time, hours after the protest, ppl keep coming to stand on the Urumqi Street of Shanghai, same site a vigil was held last night. A video shows a young guy shouting,“we all know how those Urumqi ppl died,right? Let’s be brave”.He’s pushed into a police car immediately pic.twitter.com/AethDDVjoF

— Vivian Wu (@vivianwubeijing) November 27, 2022

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