China virus protests hit Hong Kong after mainland rallies HONG KONG (AP) — Students in Hong Kong chanted “oppose dictatorship” in a protest against China’s COVID rules Monday after demonstrators on the mainland issued an unprecedented call for President Xi Jinping to resign in the biggest show of opposition to the ruling Communist Party in decades.But the government showed no sign of backing down on its larger COVID strategy, and analysts expect authorities to quickly silence the dissent.“I’ve wanted to speak up for a long time, but I did not get the chance to,” said James Cai, a 29-year-old from Shanghai who attended a Hong Kong protest and held up a piece of white paper, a symbol of defiance against the ruling party’s pervasive censorship.Urumqi, where the deadly fire occurred, and another city in the Xinjiang region in the northwest announced markets and other businesses in areas deemed at low risk of infection would reopen this week and public bus service would resume.At an event in Central, a business district, about four dozen protesters held up blank sheets of paper and flowers in what they said was mourning for people killed in the fire in Urumqi in China’s northwest and others who have died as a result of “zero COVID” policies."