By Kathleen Magramo and CNN’s Beijing bureau
A young woman stands on her balcony, screaming depressed after its construction was condemned to closure.
Holding back tears, he shouts insults in hazmat uniforms in a video that recently went viral on social media platform Weibo and appears to summarize the Chinese public’s growing frustration with his government’s uncompromising zero-covid policy.
He’s been quarantined for six months since returning from college this summer, he yells at workers. They look back, probably indifferent.
While Asia’s top economies, even those that in the past held hardline positions on 0 Covid, are abandoning pandemic-era restrictions, the Chinese government remains jealous of its own, continually insisting this week in state media articles that the war on the virus continues. winnable. “
The call comes even as infections erupt and a new strain circulates days before the country’s biggest political event, the Communist Party Congress that begins Sunday in Beijing, at which Xi Jinping is expected to cement his position as the country’s toughest leader in decades.
Observers around the world will watch the assembly twice a decade for symptoms of the party’s priorities related to its zero-covid stance, which has been accused of exacerbating developing disruptions in the economy, from stagnant expansion to the collapse of the housing market. .
Nerves are at their best in the Chinese capital, where online images posted Thursday appeared to show an exceptionally rare public outcry against Xi. “Say no to covid testing, yes to food. lies, yes to dignity. No to the Cultural Revolution, yes to reform. No to the wonderful leader, yes to the vote. Don’t be a slave, be a citizen,” reads a banner hanging over an overpass despite heightened security around Congress.
“Strike, dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping,” says the other.
The protest triggered China’s strict censorship.
Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, censored the search effects for “Sitong Bridge,” the protest site. Before long, keywords like “Beijing,” “Haidian,” “warrior,” “brave man,” and even “courage” were forbidden to search.
Many accounts on Weibo and WeChat, the must-have super app for life in China, were banned after commenting on or alluding to the protest.
However, many have spoken out to express their help and admiration. Some shared the hit Chinese pop “Lonely Warrior” in a veiled reference to the protester, whom some called a “hero,” while others vowed never to do so, posting with the hashtag: “I saw it. “
However, even in the face of growing public discontent, all the symptoms suggest that Xi and his party plan to stick to the zero-covid approach, in all likelihood until 2023, and state media reports this week served to quell the hypothesis that the country could simply replace course after Congress.
According to CNN’s calculations, more than three hundred million people in dozens of cities across China were affected by general or partial lockdowns sometime last month.
But as restrictions are lifted and imposed in response to local covid outbreaks, the virus helps keep resurging.
And new outbreaks reported across the country this week suggest there may be more distress on the way for Chinese citizens, like the woman in the Weibo video, who are exhausted through an endless cycle of lockdowns.
China’s Health Commission on Thursday reported 1,476 cases of Covid-19 transmitted across the country, a significant number in a country where even an infection can cause a citywide lockdown.
In the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, 900,000 citizens of Hegang city have been locked up since Friday after a case of singleness was discovered.
In Hanghai, where another 25 million people have already endured two months of the world’s strictest lockdown, citizens are now watching for any signs of repetition as the government begins to tighten measures again.
The city reported 47 cases of covid-19 on Thursday, a day after the government ordered six of its thirteen districts to close entertainment venues such as cafes, cinemas and bars. The Shanghai Disney resort suspended some of its attractions and live performances since Sunday.
Frightened by the option of unpredictable and unforeseen instant closures, and aware that the government has already backtracked after suggesting that no such measures would be taken, other people in the city have reportedly hoarded drinking water.
This panic buying was compounded by an announcement that the Shanghai water government took steps to ensure water quality after finding saltwater inflows into two reservoirs at the mouth of the Yangtze River in September.
The exact cause of the surge in infections is unclear, even though the government is running to implicate the spread of the BF. 7 coronavirus strain after it was first detected in China last September in Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia.
The country has also noticed a spike in cases in domestic tourist destinations, despite its strict restrictions discouraging other people from traveling or spending China’s Golden Week holiday in early October.
Hohhot recorded 329 instances on Thursday, according to the National Health Commission, which now considers remote control a high-risk hotspot.
More than 240,000 university academics in Inner Mongolia have been locked down on campuses due to the latest outbreak, according to Zhang Xiaoying, deputy director of the regional education department. And the outbreak on campus has led to punitive measures, with a Communist Party chief at a university fired after 39 academics from his establishment tested positive.
Then there is the situation in western Xinjiang, where some 22 million people have been banned from leaving the region and required to stay in their homes. Xinjiang recorded 403 new cases on Thursday, according to an official tally.
However, in the midst of all this, Beijing is not willing to abandon its difficult stance. For 3 days this week, the People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, published comments reiterating that China would not let its guard down.
“Lying down is advisable,” he said Wednesday in his third comment, referring to a Chinese word meaning complacency.
The war against covid could be won, he insisted. Other countries that had reopened and eased restrictions had done so because they had no choice, he said, because they had failed to “effectively control the outbreak in a timely manner. “
El-CNN-Wire™
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