No to Covid Tests! Yes! to Freedom. No to lies! Yes to dignity”. 

All over China this weekend ordinary people chanted those words on the streets as anger over Xi Jinping’s draconian zero Covid policy finally boiled over.

But the words they are repeating were inspired by a single act of defiance over a month ago.

On October 13, a man apparently acting alone draped two white banners daubed with large red characters over the parapet of the Sitong road bridge in northwest Beijing.

“[We] don’t need Covid tests, we need to eat; we don’t need lockdowns, we need freedom; we don’t need lies, we need dignity; we don’t need Cultural Revolution, we need reform; we don’t need leaders, we need votes; we are not slaves, we are citizens,” read one banner.

The second called for strikes and urged people to “take down dictator Xi Jinping”.

At the time, it seemed like an isolated and futile gesture of defiance. The man was immediately arrested, and all mention of the incident was immediately scrubbed from the Chinese internet.

The footage and any related hashtags, including “Sitong bridge” and “Beijing”, were quickly censored on Chinese social media, with online users reporting that their WeChat accounts were frozen after posting pictures of the event.