Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday blamed students frustrated by three years of COVID for the mass anti-government protests currently breaking out around China. The private comment came in a three-hour meeting in Beijing with European Council President Charles Michel, EU officials said, even as the Chinese government has refused to acknowledge the furious demonstrations. Michel “pleaded for use of vaccines and then raised the question of China’s measures and government measures,” one EU official said. “And the response we got from the president was explaining why there was protests, claiming that after three years of COVID he had an issue because people were frustrated. It was mainly students, or teenagers in university,” they added. China’s ruling communist party is facing its most overt domestic opposition in decades as rage about its stringent “zero-COVID” pandemic controls which have seen millions of people confined in continuing lockdowns.