What would happen if online deliveries from China’s tech giants stopped overnight? This city offers a glimpse

It was not a failure of technology or the apps that caused the problems - the local government shut down infrastructure, such as restaurants and stores

Analysts say that slower adoption and usage of online platforms, as well as the lower availability of gig workers, contributed to the service disruption

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Volunteers check orders of daily necessity goods at a supermarket according to requests from residents in quarantine in Tonghua, northeast China's Jilin Province, Jan. 24, 2021. Photo: Xinhua/Xu Chang

Published: 6:00am, 29 Jan 2021Updated: 1:52pm, 29 Jan 2021

A humanitarian crisis of sorts took place in a Chinese town last week after the local authority imposed draconian measures to lock down 300,000 residents to contain an outbreak of Covid-19.

The restrictions in the downtown area of Tonghua, a rust-belt town in Jilin province near China’s border with North Korea, not only led to complaints about food and medicine shortages, but also to an outpouring of criticism on social media that delivery and e-commerce services from the likes of Meituan and Ele.me had also been suspended.

While Tonghua is not well-known for being a tech-driven metropolis – the last time it hit the headlines was when angry workers from a bankrupt steel plant beat a manager from a potential private bidder to death – the adverse reaction to the sudden withdrawal of convenient internet services shows just how essential they have become to everyday life in China.

Water vapour and smoke rise from a Tonghua Iron & Steel Group Co. plant in the Erdaojiang district in Tonghua, Jilin province, China, 2016. Photo: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

“Where are those food delivery and online grocery apps when you need them most?” Kevin Li [told the Post], a 32-year-old resident of Tonghua, which had reported 279 confirmed Covid-19 cases by Tuesday. He tried and failed to order from online delivery giant Meituan and Duo Duo Maicai, a fresh vegetable delivery app operated by social commerce firm Pinduoduo.

“The situation in Tonghua is so bad … Even during the lockdown last year in Wuhan, local people could still use JD.com, Meituan, and Ele.me,” wrote another netizen on Weibo, referring to the country’s major e-commerce and food delivery apps.