Weibo: No to Covid, No to Independence, and No to Democracy: The Case of Xi Jinping in the Campaign for Social Security

And while experts say it’s possible economic and other considerations could see China loosen certain controls in the coming year, an eventual end to zero-Covid may not see an end to all of its vestiges – especially as Xi, including in his Sunday address, has made clear his focus on increasing “security” in China.

Fighting back tears, she shouts abuse at the hazmat-suited workers below in a video that has recently gone viral on social media platform Weibo and which appears to encapsulate the Chinese public’s growing frustration with their government’s uncompromising zero-Covid policy.

The woman has been under quarantine for half a year since returning from university in the summer, she shouts at the workers. They stare back, seemingly unmoved.

The battle against swine flu is not over despite most Asian economies abandoning their restrictions, but China is still trying to make the case that it’s still possible.

That claim comes even as infections flare and a new strain circulates just days before the country’s most important political event, the Communist Party Congress beginning in Beijing on Sunday at which Xi Jinping is expected to cement his place as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.

Observers across the world will be watching the two-decade meeting for any signs of the party’s priorities in regards to its zero-Covid stance, which has been blamed for compounding problems in the economy, from stalling growth to a collapsing housing market.

Yes to food, say no to the Covid test. No to lockdown, yes to freedom. No to lies, yes to dignity. No to a cultural revolution. No to great leader, yes to vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” one banner read, while the other called for the removal of “dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping.”

Search results for Sitong Bridge were immediately put down by Weibo. Before long, key words including “Beijing,” “Haidian,” “warrior,” “brave man,” and even “courage” were restricted from search.

Numerous accounts on Weibo and WeChat, the super-app essential for daily life in China, have been banned after commenting on – or alluding to – the protest.

Still, many spoke out to express their support and awe. Some shared the Chinese pop hit “Lonely Warrior” in a veiled reference to the protester, who some called a “hero,” while others swore never to forget, posting under the hashtag: “I saw it.”

The China War against Covid Revisited: From Guangzhou to Xinjiang, and back again in the Inner Mongolia

It didn’t take long for an answer. In his opening speech, Chinese President Xi Jinping reaffirmed the nation’s commitment to zero-Covid — a stance made all the more inviolable since securing his unprecedented third term.

In Shanghai, where 25 million people have already endured two months of the world’s strictest lockdown, residents are now on edge at any signs of a repeat as authorities begin to tighten measures once again.

Guangzhou, a city with 19 million people, accounted for more than a quarter of the 17,552 new Covid cases that were reported by the National Health Commission.

Spooked by the possibility of unpredictable and unannounced snap lockdowns – and mindful that authorities have previously backtracked after suggesting that no such measures were coming – some people in the city have reportedly been hoarding drinking water.

That panic buying has been made worse by an announcement that Shanghai’s water authorities have taken action to ensure water quality after discovering saltwater inflows to two reservoirs at the mouth of the Yangtze River in September.

The increase in infections is not clear and authorities are trying to contain the spread of the coronavirus strain after it was first found in China.

The country has seen an increase in cases related to domestic tourist destinations despite restrictions on travel over China’s Golden Week holiday.

More than 240,000 university students in Inner Mongolia have been locked down on campuses due to the latest outbreak, according to Zhang Xiaoying, a deputy director of the regional Department of Education. And the outbreak on campus has led to punitive action, with one university Communist Party boss being sacked after 39 students from his institution tested positive.

Then there is the situation in far western Xinjiang, where some 22 million people have been banned from leaving the region and are required to stay home. There were over 400 new cases in the region on Thursday, according to the tally.

Beijing seems unwilling to move from its hardline stance. For three days this week, the state-run Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published commentaries reiterating that China would not let its guard down.

The battle against Covid was winnable, it insisted. Other countries that had reopened and relaxed restrictions did so because they failed to control the epidemic in a timely manner.

The Communist Party sent top officials to help deal with the growing crisis after the first coronaviruses outbreak in early 2020. One of them, Sun Chunlan, stayed for three months, rallying local cadres and sourcing protective gear for health workers and hospital beds for patients.

Calling for absolute loyalty in a war against the virus, Ms. Sun warned that any deserters would be “nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever.”

From Big Data to Daily Life in China: Three Years of Xi’s Powerful Chancellor’s Razor on China’s Mobile Phone

It is the role of a rare woman in Chinese politics that she has become accustomed to, driving the Communist party’s will and bearing the country’s criticism. Hanzhang, an assistant professor of politics at Pitzer College said that women get pushed to the frontline when male politicians don’t want to deal with a crisis.

Nearly three years later, however, Xi is poised to cement his place as China’s most powerful leader in decades, when he is anointed with a likely norm-breaking third term as the party chief on Sunday.

People are watching for signs that restrictions could be loosened as China’s Communist Party meets this week to approve their next five years of priorities. Any change would need to come from the top, with the leader of the party always wanting to extend the control of daily life.

China has an advanced online platform that allows consumers to shop, eat and travel using mobile phone superapp and ubiquitous QR codes. Now, those technologies play a role in constraining daily life.

Mobile phone health codes are the backbone of a system designed to track citizens and designate whether they are cleared to enter various venues, upping state control on people’s movement to an extent never before seen in China.

Basic activities like riding public transport, going to the grocery store and entering an office building depend on holding a negative Covid test and not being flagged as a close contact with a patient.

Going out in public can be a risk in itself, as being placed under quarantine or barricaded by authorities into a mall or office building as part of a snap lockdown could simply depend on whether someone in the general vicinity ends up testing positive.

One Shanghai resident called the big data flaws, and said that it had control over his daily life after he spent a recent afternoon scrambling to prove he didn’t need to quark after a tracking systems pinned his wife to a location near to where a positive case occurred.

Li, who’d been with his wife at the time but received no such message, said they were eventually able to reach a hotline and explain their situation, ultimately returning her health code to green.

Communist Party reshuffle aims to end the covid epidemic: What do you think about the cost of a late-night bus?

One of three similar editorials released last week by the party’s official publication, was about putting people first and prioritizing life, and was meant to lower public expectations about policy changes ahead of the Party.

“What makes you think that you won’t be on that late-night bus one day?” read a viral comment, which garnered more than 250,000 likes before it was censored – one of a number of glimpses into rising frustration with the cost of the policy.

Last week, a rare political protest in Beijing saw banners hung from a bridge along the capital’s busy Third Ring Road that zoned in on social controls under the policy.

Speaking before some 2,300 mostly surgical-mask clad Communist Party members at the opening of the party’s five-yearly leadership reshuffle on Sunday, Xi gave a sweeping endorsement of China’s Covid controls, saying the party had “protected the people’s health and safety to the greatest extent possible” and “made tremendous, encouraging achievements in both epidemic and social development.”

The impact of those controls is becoming sharper, as lockdowns – which have repeatedly left people struggling for access to food and medicine and grappling with lost income and a mental toll – have become more frequent.

In the run up to the Party Congress, controls amplified – as local authorities around the country sought to tamp down on outbreaks coinciding with the major political event.

The Covid threat was reduced due to the availability of antivirals and higher vaccine coverage. The point has already been crossed where a transition away from zero- Covid should be considered cost effective, he said.

Younger people who live in more cosmopolitan urban centers are more likely to back relaxing rules in China than older people who live in rural areas, according to residents.

That’s left many unprepared for what experts say could be an impending surge in cases in a country where the vast majority of people have not been exposed to the virus.

Concerns that a loosened of restrictions could overwhelm China’s health system have been caused by low vaccination rates among the elderly. Two thirds of people aged 80 and older had received two doses by November 11, and only 40% had received a booster shot.

The Council on Foreign Relations believes that the policy will not be changed soon if you see no effort to prepare for the change.

Chinese government announces measures to ease “dynamic zero COVID” quarantine, travel rules and monitoring & control after the Covid-19 outbreak

Already the health code system has been used to diffuse social protest – with petitioners who lost their savings in rural banks barred from protesting after their health codes inexplicably turned red.

There has been a series of mass public campaigns designed to get Chinese minds into service of the state during the rule of the Communist Party.

SHANGHAI — China on Friday announced steps to ease its “dynamic zero COVID” policy by shortening quarantine requirements, simplifying travel rules, and adjusting its monitoring and control regime.

The new measures were announced Friday following a meeting by the ruling Communist Party’s top decision-making body, during which leaders vowed to maintain Covid protocols while stressing the need to minimize economic and social disruptions.

The zero-tolerance approach has faced increasing challenges from highly transmissible new variants, and its heavy economic and social costs have drawn mounting public backlash.

The so-called “circuitbreaker” mechanism, under which China-bound flights were halted if there was a lot of passengers with positive Covid at the airport, will not be used anymore.

Outbound international passengers will have their pre-departure test requirement lowered from two to one, as well as their mandatory home isolation after 7 days of arrival, which will be cut from 5 to 3 days.

International investors are jittery because of the Covid-19 restrictions. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index shot up just after noon, while mainland China’s benchmark index rose 2.5%.

People who are identified as close contacts of the Covid-19 cases will be given a shorter time to stay in government-operated facilities, from seven to five days.

The measures are about making the prevention and control policy more efficient, Hongbing told the news conference. He said that they are not easing control, and that reopening or lying flat is not one of them.

The government reported 10,535 new domestically transmitted cases on Thursday, the highest in months, and the authorities girded for the situation to worsen.

The National Health Commission warned that the epidemic is likely to expand in scope and scale due to the winter and spring weather factors.

Why is a Zero-Covid Policy Important to Public Health in China? A Commentary on the Conversation of Matthew Bossons and the CNN Investigative Editor

Matthew Bossons is a journalist and an editor in China. He has lived in China for a few years. The views that he expresses in this commentary are his own. There are more opinions on CNN.

In the lead up to China’s Communist Party Congress, watercooler conversations in offices were focused on a single question: Will the Congress abandon its zero- Covid policy?

Students in many cities are learning in remote places. My daughter is not at school for the second week in a row because of restrictions related to Covid-19. She has spent more time at her home in the year 122 than in the classroom.

Restrictions at a moment’s notice have made it nearly impossible to plan more than 20 minutes ahead of time. This is bad for business, of course, but it also affects ordinary people’s ability to go about their lives — you never know when you might get locked down in your apartment, workplace, a local mall or even Shanghai Disneyland.

Some friends, who have suffered through an unexpected lockdown or two, have even taken to carrying a backpack full of clothes, toiletries and work essentials with them at all times in case they get trapped at the local pub.

One in five urban youth in the country are out of work, business meetings and trade shows are being canceled or postponed, and workplaces are often closed due to fears of the coronaviruses, including the recent lock-down at a factory which left employees fleeing down a highway.

I had been in China for three days before public health officials contacted me and told me to be careful.

You would presume that traveling from a city with a well-publicized disease outbreak would be enough to warrant immediate notice of self-isolation upon debarking the plane. Alas, not.

But here’s the real kicker: While I needed to stay home for four days, my wife and daughter, who live with me, were allowed to leave the apartment and wander around the city at will. Now, let’s assume I was infected with the virus and that my family were now carriers: Why would a policy intended to protect people’s health “to the greatest extent possible,” to quote Xi, allow for such a flagrant risk to public wellness?

When a young boy died in a locked-down apartment building: The internet rage machine of China confronts the Censorship of Covid-19

Demand for counseling services is up, and a nationwide survey conducted across China in 2020 found that nearly 35% of respondents were dealing with psychological distress amid the pandemic.

A woman suffering from an anxiety disorder jumped to her death from a locked-down apartment building in the capital city of China.

Also this month, a 3-year-old boy died following a suspected gas leak at a locked-down residential compound in the western city of Lanzhou. On social media, the boy’s dad said that he tried to alert health workers to call an ambulance but wasn’t allowed in due to his Covid-19 testing status.

There are a variety of vocal zero-Covid defenders on Chinese social media, but there are also some disapproving voices in the country.

The internet rage machine was on full load after the death of the young boy, with the hashtags on Weibo accounting for hundreds of millions of views.

Anger was primarily directed at the government’s censorship of posts related to the incident and “excessive Covid-19 prevention measures.” The videos show a rare show of resistance by city residents, shouting at public health workers and riot police.

Unfortunately for those hoping for a swift end to zero-Covid, negative public feedback is unlikely to result in any immediate changes. But if the economic situation does not improve and discontent grows, it could force the government to reevaluate its position — it has happened before.

CAM footage of protests against the Covid lockdown in the southern manufacturing hub of China: “We’re not going to be sorry, but we will be careful”

Residents under Covid lockdown in China’s southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou have torn down barriers meant to confine them to their homes, taking to the streets in defiance of strictly enforced local orders, according to video and images circulating on social media.

Covid workers wearing protective medical wear are in a video standing on the sidelines while trying to speak with people on the streets. “They’re revolting,” a woman’s voice is heard saying in the background of one of the videos. CNN could not independently confirm the location of the images, but it knew that they were in the district.

Multiple social media users said a clanging sound of barriers falling across the neighborhood and cheers for it in the video took place late Monday evening on district streets.

It is not clear how many people were involved in the protest, or how long it lasted. Related posts were swiftly scrubbed from the Chinese internet by censors.

The deputy Director of the Guangzhou municipal health commission told a news conference Monday that “pandemic containment measures will be enhanced in the entirety of Liwan and Panyu districts, and parts of Haizhu and Yuex.”

The measures should be balanced with the needs of the economy and society according to Beijing officials. The policy was revised last week including discouraging unnecessary mass testing and being classified as a high risk area.

They also largely scrapped the quarantining of secondary close contacts and reduced the time close contacts must spend in central quarantine – all changes officials insist are not a relaxation but a refinement of the policy.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/china/china-covid-guangzhou-protests-intl-hnk/index.html

An urban village dwells in the jungle: a migrant worker’s cry during nighttime protests in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district

Xi was about to go to the summits in Southeast Asia to show China was ready to return to the world stage with his first meeting with leaders from the western world in person this month.

migrant workers live in densely packed buildings in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district, known as an urban village, where images showed nighttime protests.

Their situation makes it hard for the oppressive measures when the true number of residents in a particular housing block is not known. There’s also no option of remote work to preserve income for those employed in factories and on construction sites.

In messages shared on social media, observers noted that Haizhu residents originally from outside Guangzhou were pleading for help from officials.

In a video circulating on social media, a man can be heard screaming “Us Hubei people want to eat! Us Hubei people want to be unsealed!” Many migrant workers in the district come from another province. The crowd is gathered around a group of workers in hazmat suits.

In a separate clip of the same scene, another man asks the workers: “If your parents have gone sick, how would you feel? How would you feel if your children were prevented from leaving the hospital because they were sick?

In one video, people shouting out their anger to a man who says he wants to address their concerns. One resident rushes forward to say that as non-local residents they’re left to queue for hours for Covid-19 testing and the meat sold to them by the government has gone bad, while they can’t get through to local support hotlines.

The office line is always busy, but nobody came to explain. The landlord doesn’t care if we live or die. What should we do?” The resident says that the other people in the crowd are yelling: “Un seal! Unseal!”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/china/china-covid-guangzhou-protests-intl-hnk/index.html

The case of Zhou and his father, who lost his father in the November 1 video chat lockdown, but no media attention after the snap Covid restrictions

In the city news conference Monday, a Haizhu district official acknowledged criticisms that restrictions could have been announced earlier and with more clarity on areas affected by the measures.

CNN has a version of the story in their Meanwhile in China newsletter, where there will be a three-times-a-week update on the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.

Zhou, an auto dealer in northeastern China, last saw his father alive in a video chat on the afternoon of November 1, hours after their home on the far outskirts of Beijing was locked down.

At the time, they didn’t even realize the snap Covid restrictions had been imposed – there was no warning beforehand, and the apartment building where Zhou’s parents and his 10-year-old son lived did not have any cases, he said.

The family found out the hard way when Zhou’s father was denied an emergency medical assistance after he began to struggle to breathe during the video call. Zhou and his son made calls for an ambulance a number of times, but security guards prevented family members from going to take Zhou to the hospital, he said.

Zhou tried to get reporters to report on his story, but they didn’t show up. Amid growing desperation and anger, he turned to foreign media – despite knowing the risk of repercussions from the government. CNN only used his name because of the risk.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/25/china/china-zero-covid-discontent-reopening-mic-intl-hnk/index.html

Zero Covid Discontent Reopening Mic Intl-hnk: The Chongqing Case in China After the Breakdown of Mass Testing

The biggest iPhone factory in the world clashed with security officers because of a delayed bonus payment and chaotic Covid rules.

In the city of Chongqing, in the southwestern part, a resident delivered a speech that criticized the Covid lockdown on his compound. Without freedom, I would rather die. He shouted to a cheering crowd, who hailed him a hero, and wrestled him from the grasp of police officers who were attempting to take him away.

These acts of defiance echoed an outpouring of discontent online, notably from Chinese football fans – many under some form of lockdown or restrictions – who have only been able to watch from home as tens of thousands of raucous fans pack stadiums at the World Cup in Qatar.

There are signs that Chinese officials are feeling the heat of the growing public discontent, which came on top of the heavy social and economic tolls inflicted by the widening lockdowns.

Instead of relaxing controls, many local officials are reverting to the zero-tolerance playbook, attempting to stamp out infections as soon as they flare up.

The northern city of Shijiazhuang was among the first to cancel mass testing. After a long period of online classes, students were allowed to return to schools. Authorities imposed a lockdown on Monday because of cases that rose over the weekend.

On Tuesday, a ban was put on anyone arriving in the city from entering any venues for a period of five days. Authorities also shut down cultural and entertainment venues in half of the city.

Officials in Guangzhou locked down its most populous district, Baiuyun, after a protest took place for a fifth time.

In Beijing, streets in its largest district of Chaoyang are largely empty as authorities urged residents to stay home and ordered businesses to shut. Several districts moved to online classes this week.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/25/china/china-zero-covid-discontent-reopening-mic-intl-hnk/index.html

What has happened in China after the first outbreak of pandemics? Comment on Beijing’s Zhou and Wang, with a freelancer in Shanghai

Chinese officials have repeatedly denied that the guidelines listed in them were meant for a pivot to living with the virus.

Back on the outskirts of Beijing, Zhou said while the zero-Covid policy “is beneficial to the majority,” its implementation at a local level had been too draconian.

He does not want it to happen again in China or anywhere in the world. “I lost my father. My son lost his beloved grandfather. I’m furious now.”

Workers across China have dismantled some of the physical signs of the country’s zero-Covid controls, peeling health code scanning signs off metro station walls and closing some checkpoints after the government unveiled an overhaul of its pandemic policy.

The changes were welcomed with relief and sparked discussions online of travel within the country and international travel in the future, but there was also a sense of uncertainty about what would happen in the future.

A manager at a Beijing tech company said that the world had changed overnight. We are getting back to normal, I feel that way. I want to get back to a normal life so this is important to me.

“How can it change so fast?” Ding asked. “It gives me the feeling that we are like fools. It is up to them. They said it’s good, so then it’s good … that’s what I feel right now. It’s so unbelievable, but I have no choice. All I can do is follow the arrangement.”

David Wang, 33, a freelancer in Shanghai, said although the changes were welcome, they had also sparked a feeling of disbelief in the city, which underwent a chaotic, more than two-month-long, citywide lockdown earlier this year.

“Of course I was very happy about these new changes – (but) most of my friends are showing typical signs of PTSD, they just can’t believe it’s happening,” he said.

What to do if you’ve got Omicron, and why you should not take it seriously: Beijing’s response to Covid fever has been sharply criticized

The Beijing health officials said the changes to the rules were inspired by the spread of the milder Omicron variant as well as China’s experience in responding to the virus.

But the changes, which come on the heels of a wave of unprecendented protests across the country against harsh Covid restrictions, are a swift about-face for a government long bent on stamping out all infections. While health authorities made slight policy revisions and cautioned officials against overreach last month, the central government up until last week had shown no signs of preparing for an imminent shift in its national strategy.

The dangers and long-term consequences of the virus have been preached by the government and state media to justify maintenance of restrictive policies.

Now, a flood of articles highlighting the more mild nature of Omicron and downplaying its risks have created a feeling of whiplash for some, and fall well short of the kind of public messaging campaigns that some other countries carried out before their own pandemic policy changes.

On China’s heavily moderated social media platform Weibo, topics and hashtags related to what to do if infected by Omicron trended high on Thursday morning, while there were numerous reports of panic buying of fever medications.

What kind of medicine would people need and what should they try to prevent if they were caught with a potentially fatal infectious disease? In fact, we should have started doing this a long, long time ago,” said Sam Wang, 26, a lawyer in Beijing, who added that the policy release felt “sudden and arbitrary.”

People are concerned about living with the viruses. Aurora Hao, 27, an English teacher in Beijing said: “I want to keep myself safe, because I could be fine after my first infection, but if I am reinfected a second or third time, I’m not sure what harm that will bring to my body.”

Wang said that his mother was now buying high-quality N95 masks and was preparing for a “nuclear winter” until there was a wave of cases.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/china/china-zero-covid-relaxation-reaction-intl-hnk/index.html

Observation of U.S. health guidelines and critics complain that they are still inconsistent with the national guidelines on dining and entertainment activities in Beijing

Many are watching how guidelines are implemented in their cities after some confusion in how the guidelines were implemented.

In Beijing, authorities on Wednesday said a health code showing a negative Covid-19 test would still be required for dining in at restaurants or entering some entertainment venues – in conflict with the national guidelines.