For many in China, the years of grueling lockdowns and privacy violations aimed at extinguishing Covid are miserable.
For President Xi Jinping, the fight against the virus is a triumph.
Its zero-tolerance covid technique is synonymous with efforts to consolidate its authority over China and its ruling Communist Party (CCP).
The final game begins on Oct. 16, when thousands of delegates will gather in Beijing for a primary congress at which he is expected to win a historic third term.
“Xi’s legacy and the legitimacy of the CCP are tied to the good fortune of the 0 Covid campaign,” Diana Fu, an expert on China’s domestic politics at the Brookings Institution think tank, told AFP.
While the rest of the world has largely moved to live with Covid, Xi has insisted on draconian policies aimed at getting rid of the virus.
This technique stalled the expansion of the world’s second-largest economy, which was already suffering from a debt-burdened housing sector and high youth unemployment.
But Xi has stood firm, pointing to the maximum “economic and efficient” path of zero-Covid China, while maintaining policies that have deepened the status over the lives of its 1. 4 billion people.
Tests and QR codes
The headlines of the crusade remain instant closures, confining tens of millions of people to their homes for weeks or months.
During one of the recent closures, some citizens were allowed to leave the megacity of Chengdu, even as an earthquake shook their buildings.
And in Shanghai’s economic hub, a months-long lockdown has led to rare scenes of protests between middle-class Chinese and the wealthy.
Public frustration has also gripped Chinese censors and social media.
In one of the most high-profile cases, a bus accident in rural Guizhou province that killed another 27 people on the way to a Covid quarantine center sparked a wave of criticism online.
General restrictions that erode privacy and restrict movement also have anger and resentment.
Residents of many localities will have to test negative every few days to access public spaces.
They then use their smartphones to scan QR codes at office and restaurant entrances and demonstrate the results of their lacheck checks.
A green icon indicates that they are loose to enter, while red or amber means that they possibly, respectively, tested positive or passed close to the person who did.
This can lead to anything from a few days of isolation at home to weeks in a quarantine facility.
The formula tracks people’s movements, leaving them open to abuses, such as when the government was accused of thwarting anti-corruption protests this year by making participants’ codes red.
Before the pandemic, Chinese citizens were already under close surveillance.
Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, said the covid surveillance apparatus was “in line with the social model” led by Xi.
‘No choice’
China argues that zero covid puts human life above considerations and has helped avoid public health crises seen in other countries.
Officials have also expressed consideration that the virus may simply overwhelm China’s irregular fitness formula if allowed to spread unchecked, especially in rural elderly communities.
So far, China has reported just over 5000 covid deaths to more than a million in the US. U. S.
But while the milder variant of the Omicron virus has reduced the threat of reopening in many countries, China’s tails continue to generate the greatest economic and social costs.
“Despite everything, they will have to abandon zero covid,” said Jin Dong-yan, a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Biomedical Sciences, calling it “false and opposed to all clinical evidence. “
The policy’s initial good fortune created a sense of inertia among policymakers, according to Allen Wu, a professor at Nanjing University School of Medicine who pleaded with the World Health Organization.
“There’s this mentality that we’ve done such a glorious task in 2020 and 2021. . . if (now) we don’t do anything and a lot of other people get infected, it betrays everything you’ve achieved,” he told AFP.
Many in China speak favorably of zero-Covid, with Fu of the Brookings Institution stating that state propaganda had convinced most people of the need for instances “at all human and economic prices. “
“A large number of Chinese citizens continue to take draconian measures despite apparent private suffering,” he said.
Even those at the top end of politics still have no option to run.
Airline engineer Ian Jiang has spent two hundred days in isolated hotels during the pandemic, and China continues to impose quarantines for overseas arrivals for up to two weeks.
Jiang, 38, described the measures as “very inconvenient for my life. “
“But that’s the Chinese government’s policy,” Jiang said. “You have no choice. “
There will be much open opposition when Xi receives the adulation of party delegates at this month’s congress.
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“The campaign, regardless of the socio-economic results, will continue to be hailed as a triumph of Chinese socialism,” Fu said.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed. )
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