Superspreader Event: 200,000 People Pack Tiananmen Square for Birthday of Communist China

China’s Communist Party boasted this weekend of packing Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, site of the party’s most famous massacre, with over 200,000 people to celebrate the fall of China to communism.

The event follows a month in which as many as 70 cities and towns across China were forced into pandemic lockdowns, allegedly to prevent the spread of Chinese coronavirus. China is one of the few countries left in the world to respond to increasing rates of Chinese coronavirus cases by forcing cities full of millions of people into lockdowns, attracting criticism from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) and scaring away travelers and foreign investors.

Communist Party officials threatened a lockdown of Beijing, home to the nation’s most powerful elite, in the first half of 2022 but ultimately did not impose one, instead locking down the nation’s largest city, Shanghai, home to 26 million people.

China’s state-run Global Times propaganda newspaper applauded the government for cramming hundreds of thousands of people in Tiananmen Square, noting that some “patriots” spent much of Friday night waiting in line to enter the highly-secured area for Saturday morning’s flag raising. The outlet noted that soldiers raise the Chinese flag in the square on the first day of every month, an event that attracts fans of “special romance with Chinese characteristics,” but that the flag-raising on the anniversary of the fall of China attracted tourists from around the country.

To watch the flag-raising ceremony on the National Day, hundreds of thousands of Chinese people began to wait at the Tiananmen Square as early as 1:30am. Pure love for the motherland. pic.twitter.com/SMsTbTpMpy

— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) October 1, 2022

National flag raising ceremony at sunrise on the National Day. An exciting moment of national pride every year. pic.twitter.com/Os5TtDipoE

— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) October 1, 2022

“Analysts said the stability, safety and certainty of China has provided the people an ideal environment to enjoy the holidays, and it also presents an ideal atmosphere with great patriotism for the upcoming significant 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China,” the Global Times claimed. The outlet claimed that Chinese authorities expected nearly 10 million train trips to take place nationwide, accessible only to those with a high social credit score.

The Tiananmen Square event was preceded by an elites-only shrine visit to honor the mass murderers that made the founding of the People’s Republic of China possible – greatly inconveniencing Beijing locals. To protect Politburo members attending the event, the Party shut down some of Beijing’s most important subway stops, essentially making it impossible for children or the elderly to attend the flag-raising ceremony on Saturday, according to the U.S.-based Radio Free Asia (RFA).

“The ceremony comes amid an ongoing mass operation in which police officers are being put under pressure to make as many arrests as possible, sources have told RFA,” the outlet relayed.

Past “patriotic” events have appeared to serve as superspreader events, prompting city-wide lockdowns in parts of the country shortly after they take place. Last year, for example, the Communist Party staged massive “patriotic” events to observe the communist holiday May Day, the international day of Marxism. Major city lockdowns followed about a month later.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Wuhan, the origin city of the Chinese coronavirus, when the Chinese government organized a gigantic New Year’s Eve party to welcome 2021, then fought off a national surge of cases before January had ended. The display served its purpose, however, as images of revelers in Wuhan made much bigger headlines in Western media than the subsequent coronavirus outbreak.

In apparent anticipation of questions regarding the potential for an event featuring a tightly-packed crowd traveling from around the country to cause Chinese coronavirus outlets, the Times claimed on Saturday, without elaborating, that the crowd assembled “with strict epidemic prevention and control measures being observed.”

The state newspaper claimed that Chinese communists nationwide were similarly expected to celebrate with large gatherings.

“The festive and patriotic atmosphere can be found everywhere across the country. Five-star red flags are dazzling Chinese streets and Chinese social media was filled with blessings wishing the motherland to be more prosperous and stronger,” the regime outlet claimed. “A video which went viral online showed young Chinese frontier soldiers from China’s east, south, west and north border areas passed on guns virtually to celebrate the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the PRC.”

Chinese Communist Party elites also preceded the flag-raising with a lavish reception on Friday evening attended by dictator Xi Jinping, top Politburo members, and “nearly 500 guests from home and abroad.” The People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, noted that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang issued remarks at the reception acknowledging that China was facing “complex and challenging developments both within and outside China,” an apparent reference to the collapse of China’s economy under lockdowns and growing reports of protests nationwide.

Xi addressed the holiday in an article published in a Communist Party journal on Saturday, warning of “great struggles” for the communists ahead.

“Our party must be united to lead the people to face major challenges effectively, defend against major risks, overcome major barriers and resolve major contradictions. We must press on with great struggles under new historical characteristics,” Xi wrote in his article, according to a translation by the South China Morning Post. “We will not walk back to the old path of isolation and dogmatism, nor shall we ever take the evil path of changing flags.”

The national holiday is the first day of “Golden Week,” a week-long holiday where Chinese citizens are encouraged to travel to sites of historic significance to the Communist Party and watch communist propaganda films in movie theaters.

Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.