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The Communist Party’s efforts to restrict discord over its “zero Covid” pivot are being challenged with the resentment that is being generated, adding its own supporters.
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By Chang Che, Claire Fu and Amy Chang Chien
A furious and far-reaching dispute is taking position on the web in China over the reversal of the government’s strict pandemic policies and the huge rise in Covid that followed. The divisions challenge the Communist Party’s efforts to the narrative around its pandemic pivot.
Since the party abandoned “zero covid” last month, many online commentators have taken opposing positions on probably all sorts of issues. Who is to blame for the explosion of cases and deaths?Is a government-appointed fitness expert reliable?Serious, as Chinese officials now say, as hospitals seem to be filled with patients with poor physical condition?They even argue about whether other people deserve to be allowed to light fireworks on the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, after many did so in the New Year.
The numerical signage shows a deeply polarized country, with all aspects suspicious and skeptical of the other and, to varying degrees, of the party and its representatives. In some cases, the party’s own supporters question its decisions, complicating the party’s efforts. Party censors and propaganda media to convey their message.
“The sudden 180-degree turn of ‘zero covid’ has triggered a new crisis that the government will have to help the people about,” said Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College who studies Chinese politics. The party will now have to involve covid infections, save an economy dragged down by its “zero covid” policy and fix the damage to its brand caused by the chaotic reopening, Pei said.
If Beijing acts too hard to quell discord, it can still alienate many of those who have long championed “zero covid” and have been or disappointed by the sudden policy shift. But if you allow arguments to escalate, you risk blurring. its message and sowing more uncertainty.
“It is very harmful to Chinese society if society is divided into very antagonistic teams, which are also powerless, equally powerless, and blame others,” said Xiang Biao, an expert on social problems in China based in Germany.
By far the most vocal aspect is made up of those who have supported “zero Covid”: a combination of online nationalist influencers, conservative academics, and various trolls. Some saw the strict policy as mandatory to save lives in a country where doctors are unequal. Others followed the party’s argument that “zero Covid” was a measure of China’s impressive political model.
Some voices in the so-called “zero Covid faction” sought to blame anti-lockdown protesters for the existing outbreak and emerging deaths, even though the virus had spread wildly before the political change. They call those who supported the end of “zero Covid” “tangfei” or “bandit flat mendacity,” an insulting variant of “flat mendacity,” a term used to refer to a lazy way of life that in the past had been co-opted through Chinese state media. to criticize Western approaches to living with Covid.
Some of the criticism means that by cancelling “zero Covid,” the party has strengthened its critics at home and in the West, and weakened its standing even among its own loyalists. For a time, online influencers like Sima Nan, a nationalist, even denigrated government-appointed experts, such as Zhang Wenhong, a senior epidemiologist in Shanghai who had opposed excessive lockdowns, suggesting that Dr. Zhang had misled the public about the seriousness of Omicron. those non-public attacks.
In the other aspect are those who welcomed the resumption of school, work, business and not only as a relief from the blockades, but as a much-needed withdrawal of the Communist Party from everyday life. Many identify as part of the “opening” or faction of the “lifting of lockdowns” related to university students, migrant workers, peasants and small business owners who protested against “Covid zero” in November.
Even Xi Jinping, the country’s most sensible leader, made a rare acknowledgment of public disagreements, saying in a New Year’s speech, “It is natural for other people to have other considerations or have other criticisms on the same issue. “
However, he stressed that he expects the Chinese to line up and “think in one direction, paint in one direction. The China of tomorrow comes from unity,” he said.
For much of the past three years, Mr. Xi had tolerated no opposition, brandishing the “zero covid” policy as evidence of the authoritarian party’s superiority in protecting other people over chaotic Western democracies. Now, along with a worsening public health crisis, the government is forced to rein in its same old advocates, those who had helped make “zero Covid” the only way forward.
Tao Siliang, a member of China’s communist elite, recently criticized Sima Nan’s attacks for contradicting the party’s new leadership. On Thursday, Weibo, a social networking site, shut down or temporarily suspended more than 1,000 accounts, adding that of prominent nationalist Kong Qingdong, for carrying out private attacks against experts and academics.
“Right now, what we want to the maximum is to respect the parable of 44 years: ‘Look forward in unity,’ not to challenge, not to tear, especially not to denounce or insult,” the official gazette of China’s Zhejiang province said. . is, he wrote in a recent editorial.
But some “Covid zero” advocates, disillusioned by the turn of events, rejected the call for conformism.
“Please tell me, why do I have to join?” read an article that received 30,000 likes and was written through a blogger on Weibo describing the loss of an uncle due to headaches caused by covid. “On what basis am I compelled to settle for society’s sole argument that all is well?”
Some see opposition to reopening primarily as a stance from online personalities interested in attracting more followers, and expect anger to subside once epidemics peak and pass, and the economy recovers.
Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, said the online backlash is a sign of a deeper challenge to Beijing. . “
At the same time, Wu said, Mr. Wu’s top-down “zero covid” policy. Xi has led others to question the party’s authoritarian approach, stoking a new political fervor that could, over time, gain momentum. “In a way, if you look at things from the long-term attitude, the existing ‘flat’ faction is a broad base for a long-term Chinese opposition party,” Mr. Wu said.
If there’s one factor both sides seem to agree on, it’s that the government is undermining its credibility by failing to provide reliable information on the extent of covid outbreaks and deaths across the country. The official covid death toll is widely ridiculed in Chinese. Social media is absurdly low. The World Health Organization and several countries have suggested that Beijing provide more knowledge about hospitalizations and deaths. The data vacuum has fueled the hypothesis of influential people and bloggers who have drawn their own conclusions and conspiracies around the political axis.
A key to mutual infighting has been “the collapse of public trust,” said Oxford’s Xiang, who is also director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. “Government data, policies and expert opinion have lost credibility. “
In a recent social media post, Hu Xijin, the former nationalist editor of the Communist Party’s Global Times, warned that the party might be more open to debate.
“Our society may have disorders and difficulties, but there shouldn’t be too many things that are considered ‘sensitive,'” he wrote.
“In other words, this country is very trustworthy and has the internal motivation to right the wrongs. “Sensitivity” does not belong to China. »
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