Shanghai’s Covid-19 lockdown is testing public faith in the central government

Food shortages, loss of livelihood and a sense of abandonment in the city is causing many residents to become disillusioned with the central government and its zero-Covid policy
Restoring faith in the country’s leadership is crucial for maintaining an image of stability and strength

Jinyuan Li

Published: 3:30am, 15 Apr 2022

Why you can trust SCMP

It has been three weeks since the Omicron outbreak began in Shanghai. With about 280,000 confirmed cases accumulatively, the Chinese government has yet to lift prevention measures.

Mindful both of domestic discontent and global supply chain disruptions caused by the lockdowns, on April 9 the Shanghai government announced one more round of nucleic acid testing to pave the way for a shift to graduated measures. But with the number of cases remaining too high for comfort, any easing has in effect been put off.

China’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus runs contrary to global trends. People’s livelihoods, and their spirits, have been put to the test; both will affect public trust in the government. Three factors in particular are driving mistrust.

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First is the unmet appeals for more food. The extended lockdown has caused severe food shortages. The imbalance between demand from citizens and supply from management authorities has raised doubts over the government’s capacity to govern.

Netizens have taken to Weibo to air their grievances and appeal to the government for help using the hashtags “Shanghai buy food”, “disappointment with the government”, and “scrambling for vegetables”, which all became popular on the social media platform. The Shanghai government said on April 7 that it was trying to improve the distribution of food and essential goods in response to the growing discontent. However, Weibo blocked the hashtags on April 8.

A distress article titled “Seeking Help” was posted on WeChat on April 8, describing the plight of not being able to buy food. However, the article, too, has been blocked after hundreds of reposts.

Secondly, there are fears about the global impact of China’s zero-Covid policy. As the rest of the world returns to normal, China’s decision to keep regulations in place puts economic development at risk. Shanghai contributed 3.8 per cent of the nation’s GDP last year. The lockdown will cause significant disruptions to the global supply chain, which will affect almost every trade.

Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC), expressed concerns that China’s halt on activity with the use of “increasingly stringent measures” just as G20 countries are exiting pandemic-related lockdowns formed a striking contradiction.

Shanghai’s roads are seen almost empty during its extended lockdown, on April 7. Photo: Bloomberg

In January, Eurasia Group listed China’s zero-Covid policy as the biggest political risk of 2022, arguing that it would “lead to greater economic disruptions, and a more dissatisfied population”. Meanwhile, the drastic requirement for Covid-19-positive children to be separated from parents has also raised objections from Western diplomats from more than 30 countries, who wrote to the Chinese foreign ministry last week urging authorities not to take this step.

The third factor is China’s resoluteness on pursuing its zero-Covid goal. The Chinese government insists that risk of infection makes coexistence with the virus incompatible with public health. State media outlet Xinhua recently published an article backing the government’s stance titled “Adhere to scientific accuracy and ‘dynamic clearing’ unswervingly”, echoing President Xi Jinping’s declaration that “Nothing is more important than clearing of the virus,” and “unswervingly implementing the decisions and plans” of the Communist Party’s Central Committee.

Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, who was sent to Shanghai by the central government, also kept her messaging consistent with that of Xi, calling for “no hesitation” and to “stop the spread of the virus in the shortest possible time”.

Containing the spread of the virus has become a political task. Even though China’s efforts in 2020 earned Xi clout at an international level, the dispersion of public opinion now underscores the erosion of China’s long-established image of strong governance and runs contrary to its stated goal of unity. The gap between public dissatisfaction and the government’s narrative will be filled by “trust turmoil”.

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The logic is inescapable: China’s concern is that once restrictions are lifted, the surge in the number of confirmed cases in the country will raise doubts about its ability to govern at both a domestic and global level. This concern relates not only to Xi Jinping’s third term, but also to the goal of “maintaining stability” which China wants to achieve. In this sense, securing political power is at the forefront of national decision-making.

Putting a precise statistic on public opinion regarding the government’s zero-Covid efforts is not that easy, but what is clear is that the level of trust in the country’s leadership fell significantly to 82 per cent at the time of the first outbreak in 2020, according to a survey by Statista. When conditions began to stabilise in 2021, the trust level bounced back to its pre-pandemic level of 91 per cent.

This swift rebound reflects public satisfaction with how the authorities handled the pandemic. It stands to reason, then, that public trust will be affected by this latest outbreak, and depends largely on how people perceive the government’s efforts.

To regain the trust of the public, the government’s plan has been to mobilise Communist Party members all the way down to the community level – a form of party devolution that can help to secure central authority, while the ultimate decision-making power remains in the hands of the party.

The Shanghai government’s official media published an open letter to all party members in Shanghai stating that party members must be seen to act, and urging them to “reach the grass-roots level”. CCTV reported that nearly 60,000 party members have been deployed to the front line of Shanghai’s epidemic prevention efforts.

The intention is to ensure that the power of the party permeates everywhere. As Tsinghua University’s Ciqi Mei notes, “squatting officials greatly encourage more participatory behaviour”. By this definition, partisan decentralisation can to an extent improve public cooperation with the zero-Covid policy, thereby rebuilding people’s trust in the government. It is also the embodiment of what the party wants to see.

Jinyuan Li is a research candidate in global affairs at King’s College London