•  Chinese President Xi Jinping appealed to members of the SCO to cooperate with each other in order to prevent foreign powers from destabilizing their countries by inciting colour revolutions.
• He was speaking in the city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan at the annual Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

Colour revolutions

• Colour revolutions refer to a series of uprisings that first began in former communist nations in Eastern Europe in the early 2000s.
• They are also used in reference to popular movements in the Middle East and Asia.
• Most of these revolutions involved large-scale mobilisation on the streets, with demands for free elections or regime change, and calls for removal of authoritarian leaders.
• Protesters often wear a specific colour, such as in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution.
• The term has also been used to describe movements named after flowers like the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia.

Few examples of colour revolutions

• Orange Revolution
  • Yanukovych was backed by Russia while Viktor Yushchenko was an ally of the West.
  • The election commission had declared Yanukovych the winner of the election, drawing criticism from the US and European Union.
• It refers to a series of protests that occurred in Ukraine between November 2004 and January 2005.
• The movement was in response to reports that claimed that the country’s 2004 Presidential election was rigged in favour of the incumbent President Viktor Yanukovych.
• In the aftermath of the elections, protesters wearing orange took to the streets across the country.
• The results were subsequently annulled and the Ukrainian Supreme Court ordered a re-vote, in which Yushchenko emerged victorious and the movement was concluded.
• Tulip Revolution
• Also called the First Kyrgyz Revolution, the movement led to the ouster of Kyrgyzstan’s President Askar Akayev in early 2005.
• These protests were in response to the parliamentary elections in February 2022, in which Akayev’s allies and family members won.
• Protests erupted in the country against Akayev who had been President since 1990.
• Finally, Akayev fled the country with his family and resigned later.
• Jasmine Revolution
  • The term Jasmine revolution was used in reference to Tunisia’s national flower, to describe the movement.
• This was the popular uprising that occurred between December 2010 to January 2011 in Tunisia.
• It was in response to the underlying corruption, unemployment, inflation and lack of political freedoms in the country.
• Tunisians were facing hardship and injustice under the reign of longtime President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.
• The protests not only led to Ali’s ouster in January 2011, but also inspired a wave of protests in North Africa and the Middle East, which came to be known as the Arab Spring.

Why China is worried of Colour Revolution?

• In 2019, Beijing had said the protests in Hong Kong had taken on colour revolution characteristics.
  • Critics feared this could undermine judicial independence and endanger dissidents.
• Hong Kong''s protests started in June 2019 against plans to allow extradition to mainland China.
• Until 1997, Hong Kong was ruled by Britain as a colony but then returned to China.
• Under the "one country, two systems" arrangement, it has some autonomy, and its people has more rights. The new extradition bill was considered to be against these freedoms.
• Russia and China have long criticised colour revolutions for being destabilising influences.
• As per them, these revolutions have been orchestrated by the United States and its Western allies to overthrow regimes in order to further their own geopolitical interests.