My Take | China faces moment of truth on its zero-Covid-19 policy amid public defiance, pandemic fatigue
- A well-implemented zero-Covid policy is supposed to contain the virus while keeping economic activities humming
- But the virus is now out of control, the economy is in tatters, and angry citizens are showing public defiance
China’s zero-Covid drive is not going as smoothly as Beijing wished: the country has found itself locked in an impossible battle after trying for nearly a year to contain the Omicron variant, using its old playbook of mass lockdowns and mandatory testing to fight a faceless enemy that cannot be eradicated.
That approach, which had once convinced Beijing of the supremacy of its governance system, is looking increasingly cumbersome, costly and unsustainable.
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For local governments, it is a burning question that awaits a clear answer. If Beijing’s ultimate goal continues to require rooting out virus transmissions in communities as quickly as possible, local authorities have no choice but to maintain universal testing, impose snap lockdowns and drag patients into makeshift hospitals deemed by some people as “coronavirus gulags” that often consist of hundreds of beds crammed together under one big roof.
Yet under the new “20 measures”, local authorities are explicitly told to refrain from imposing additional restrictions. In other words, they are directed to steer left even when the destination is on the right. Some grass-roots officials have resorted to the informal way of governance by giving out verbal instructions for lockdowns so as to leave no written evidence for people to file complaints to higher-level authorities.