The biggest wave of protests in decades has swept through China. The population is demanding an end to the strict corona measures from the government. This has so far refused and points to new highs in the number of infections. A dilemma from which China can only free itself with a functioning vaccination campaign.
It’s a rare sight in China: Thousands of people are taking to the streets in Beijing and other cities, tearing down barriers, demanding freedom and an end to the strict corona measures. They want head of state Xi Jinping to resign and are directly calling for the end of the Communist Party. These are the largest protests in China in decades. Many people have already been arrested.
The decisive trigger was a fire on Thursday evening in a high-rise building in Urumqi, capital of western China’s Xinjiang region. Ten people died and nine were injured.
Many Chinese believe that the strict zero-Covid policy was to blame for the failure to save people. There were said to be locks on the door due to lockdown barriers, reports a relative of one of the fatalities on ntv. The quarter was blocked. Rescue workers and police did not get into the building immediately. When they arrived, the people were already dead.
Local authorities say none of this is true. However, it would not be the first time that entire blocks of flats or neighborhoods have been isolated in China and even emergency exits have been closed off in order to get a corona outbreak under control. Rescue vehicles often have difficulty getting through fences in front of houses.
Almost three years since the beginning of the corona pandemic, China is the only country in the world to stick to its strict zero-Covid policy. Initially, China’s strict pandemic path was even seen by some as a role model for the world, and virologists and scientists also demanded this course in Germany. Now this policy is weighing more and more heavily on the people of China. Things have been bubbling up in China for weeks.
At the beginning of October, many workers fled the strict quarantine in the world’s largest iPhone factory of Apple supplier Foxconn in Zhengzhou. Last week, hundreds of employees took to the streets against the tough restrictions. They clashed with security forces and violent scenes ensued.
There were also clashes with the security forces in the southern Chinese metropolis of Guangzhou. Hundreds of textile migrant workers tore down barricades there in mid-November because they were not allowed to return to their locked apartments. There are tens of thousands of new corona cases in the city, curfews have been imposed.
Even if there are only one or a few corona cases, China is still sealing off entire areas. People have to endure mass testing, forced quarantines and contact tracing. Hundreds of millions of people across the country are currently in lockdown.
Nevertheless, the corona virus in China is spreading faster than ever before in the giant country. The country is experiencing the worst corona wave since the pandemic began – the number of infections is reaching new highs. There were around 40,000 new infections on Monday.
A setback, because the Communist Party had actually changed its strict line at the beginning of November and relaxed the corona regulations somewhat. “These are rather mini concessions,” says Finn Mayer-Kuckuk, editor-in-chief at the digital medium China.Table in the ntv podcast “Learned again”. “The easing affects issues such as entry or the duration of quarantine stays. But it seems that the leadership of zero Covid can’t really get rid of it, although there is a certain will to it.”
Sometimes even the opposite happened. New lockdowns have begun in Guangzhou, Chongqing and Beijing due to the large number of corona infections. In the capital, shops, restaurants and schools are closed.
At the Chinese Communist Party congress in mid-October, the line sounded very different: State and party leader Xi Jinping praised the zero-Covid strategy as “necessary”. A few weeks later, the first loosening came surprisingly. “Even the very patient Chinese are becoming very dissatisfied. And even the Communist Party, with all its power, cannot afford for the people to be permanently dissatisfied with the situation,” analyzes Finn Mayer-Kuckuk. “For all these reasons, there is now the thought that you have to relax somehow, you need an exit.”
An even more important reason for easing is China’s weakening economy. The zero-Covid policy paralyzes many megacities. Chinese exports and imports fell unexpectedly in October for the first time in over two years.
In addition, the Chinese economy is no longer growing as strongly as usual: the World Bank expects it to grow by only 2.8 percent this year. The consequences of the lockdowns, like in Shanghai in the spring, were felt all over the world. In addition, the mass tests are expensive for the municipalities.
The fact that the second largest economy in the world is no longer doing so well is largely due to the zero Covid strategy. “Growth and jobs are sacred in the communist system because people have to be busy. The state is making a kind of promise of economic and prosperity growth. And now everything is blocked with an endlessly drawn-out zero-Covid course. At some point you have to out there, that’s perfectly clear to the planners,” says Finn Mayer-Kuckuk in the podcast.
Simply eliminating the zero-Covid strategy is not possible. Firstly, because it would be a defeat for ruler Xi Jinping, who has always viewed this as a success compared to the many deaths in Europe and the USA. And China has a big problem: Due to lockdowns and quarantines, there were no nationwide infections with the corona virus. The Chinese are hardly immune.
There are actually enough vaccines, reports Finn Mayer-Kuckuk, and the pharmaceutical industry could produce them in large quantities. But many people in China would not trust the domestic vaccines. Foreign agents such as mRNA vaccines are not permitted. The government prevented this in favor of Chinese vaccines.
China is currently vaccinating with two inactivated vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm. However, these are less effective than Biontech or Moderna. “The second booster must probably also be added, i.e. four cans. Of course, that’s difficult to convey to the population, because they don’t see any Covid,” says the China expert.
The problem is that many older people and the chronically ill were often not vaccinated sufficiently or not at all for fear of side effects. “The vaccination rate among seniors is only 68 percent and is also stagnating there – this vaccination rate has to go up,” says Finn Mayer-Kuckuk. “What needs to come now is an acceleration of the vaccination campaign and then a gradual relaxation in order to then unleash this virus on the population.”
Chinese scientists have calculated what would happen if the zero-Covid measures were completely lifted: there would be around 16 times more patients than intensive care beds. They published their study in the scientific journal “Nature Medicine” in May.
When it comes to intensive care beds, China is far behind many other Asian countries such as Taiwan or Thailand. Compared to Germany, there are only about half as many hospital beds per 10,000 inhabitants. “If Corona simply rushed through, and we’re noticing here how contagious Omicron is, then the hospitals would probably actually be overwhelmed,” said Finn Mayer-Kuckuk.
The country is in a quandary. Contagious omicron variants are spreading – loosening is therefore actually impossible. But people no longer want to endure the strict corona measures, as the protests show.
So far, the Chinese government has reacted with even more harshness. In Beijing and metropolises like Shanghai, Guangzhou or Hangzhou, there are more police officers stopping and checking people. In Shanghai, after the protests there, the affected district was cordoned off with metal bars. Critical posts on the Internet are immediately deleted by the censors.
Finn Mayer-Kuckuk estimates that the government will not say goodbye to the quarantine so quickly in the coming months. This is the only way to prevent further spread. The zero Covid strategy will be canceled in 2024. “They need the year to vaccinate, to try out strategies for how the virus can slowly spread in the country.”
The first cities are already taking very cautious easing steps. In Urumqi, people who have been locked up for weeks are allowed to leave their homes again. Traffic with buses, trains and planes is starting again. Beijing no longer wants to block residential complexes with corona infections with fences so as not to block escape routes. Other cities canceled their routine corona tests in mid-November.
A first opening makes sense, especially in the rich coastal cities, says Finn Mayer-Kuckuk. Because they would have more hospital capacity. Models could be Japan, South Korea or Taiwan.
But one thing will remain of the zero Covid era: complete surveillance of the population. Apparently the leadership likes this very much.