Chinese Covid protests are widening the cracks in the authoritarian edifice

Itis a persistent bug in the ideological device of autocracies that they are brittle and controlling

- Anne MckElvoy

STARTING out as a journalist, I learned my reporting trade on the foreign desk at The Times, where we burgeoning newshounds scrapped for the chance to assist on the big stories. On one June day in the summer of 1989, though, there were more than enough stories to go round. Three of them rocked the world - the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran and subsequent pushes for liberal reforms and rights, the vast outflows of East Germans trying to escape via Hungary to the West, and 50 days of protest, mown down by the military in Tiananmen Square.

More than three decades on, it strikes me that the intertwined threads of these stories still shape our world and this year with renewed vigour.

Once again, Iranians are rising up in protests unleashed by restrictions on women's dress and deaths at the hands of the "morality police". The eastern flank of Europe is in foment as Ukraine fights to break free of Moscow's sway, as East Germans were able to do more than 30 years ago. And China, under the tightening rule of President Xi, the most powerful leader since Mao, is in the grip of street protests prompted by over severe Covid rules.