This picture (among others) has been circulating around WeChat and other social media today.

Thousands of retirees protested in Hankou today, the second such protest since the one performed one week ago, over the government’s sudden and arbitrary reduction in health benefits.

You can tell this is a protest in China because of the violence as the authoritarian state grinds those who dare speak out against its policies under tank treads and truncheon blows in clouds of tear gas and worse.

Oddly missing from this picture, given the image people have of Chinese governance:

• Tear gas.
• Truncheons.
• Tanks.

Oddly missing too from this picture for those who are familiar with protests of equivalent size in the USA or the UK or other such places:

• Protestor violence.

You have to give credit to the survivors of the February 8th carnage. It must take some serious courage to come back a week later to be ground under tank treads and smashed under truncheon blows again.