Part of that shift has included retiring much of Deng’s policies – such as the axiom of “keeping a low profile and biding your time”, which had successfully guided China’s foreign policy for decades.

02:02

Shanghai neighbours scream in unison to release lockdown stress

Shanghai neighbours scream in unison to release lockdown stress

For anyone still hoping for a shift in policy, China’s national television prime time news on Wednesday evening should have put paid to it.

The report quoted Xi, who had just ended an inspection tour of Hainan province, as saying that China would stick to its dynamic zero-Covid policy. “Perseverance means victory,” he said.

‘Uncertainty drives me crazy’: SCMP reporters under lockdown in Shanghai

But it is getting much harder to ask the Chinese people to persevere – and the authorities know that.

Since Monday, China’s major state media outlets, including Xinhua and People’s Daily, have released a barrage of commentaries arguing that dynamic zero-Covid is the best approach to fight the virus and protect the vulnerable, instead of choosing to “live with Covid” as much of the rest of the world has done.

The key message being that the authorities’ decision to tighten their zero-Covid approach will succeed in achieving the greatest possible outcome by containing the virus at the lowest possible cost, and with the least possible impact on economic and social development.

That argument may account for China’s successes in containing the spread of the virus over the past two years, during which the country maintained low infection and mortality rates as well as stronger economic growth compared with other major powers.

But the public’s response to the latest outbreak seems to suggest sentiments about the virus and the government’s strategy have shifted significantly. There is now a growing sense of frustration and fear about the devastating costs and personal sacrifices people are being asked to make for the good of the country.

Over the past week, numerous heart-wrenching posts have been shared on social media showing the extent of some residents’ distress.

There were complaints of food shortages; videos of toddlers being forcibly removed from their parents after testing positive; accounts of patients dying in front of hospitals while waiting for their test results; footage of a desperate mother banging on her neighbours’ doors in the small hours of the morning pleading for medicine for her feverish baby; and recordings of pets who tested positive being brutally put down.

Shanghai stretched to breaking point under dynamic zero-Covid

Sadly, none of this is new and such incidents have occurred in previous lockdowns of other Chinese cities.

But the fact that the authorities appear to not have learned any lessons and still allowed this to happen in Shanghai – arguably one of China’s most important cities and home to many of the rich and powerful – sent shock waves throughout the mainland and abroad.

More cities elsewhere in the country have now taken pre-emptive measures, including imposing citywide lockdowns, despite registering just a few confirmed cases – and in some extreme instances, none at all. Many cities have blocked highway on-ramps and off-ramps despite warnings from the central government about doing so. Road transport accounts for some 70 per cent of China’s logistics.

A report by economic research consultancy Gavekal Dragonomics found that all but 13 of China’s top 100 cities measured by GDP had implemented various degrees of Covid-19 controls ranging from targeted restrictions to partial and full lockdowns.

Meanwhile, the government’s online censors have gone into overdrive scrubbing out any comments criticising the zero-Covid policy, while state media outlets have been instructed to report only on its upsides.

01:27

Shanghai’s citywide Covid-19 lockdown spurs race to stockpile food across China

Shanghai’s citywide Covid-19 lockdown spurs race to stockpile food across China

But the reality is that no one is calling on the government to lift all restrictions. People merely want the policy to be tweaked to adapt to the latest developments.

That has proved impossible, however. As the Chinese leadership hails the country’s anti-Covid efforts as showing the institutional strengths of the Communist Party, some state media commentaries have suggested that choosing between zero-Covid and the option of living with the virus represents a struggle between two opposing systems of governance.

Any deviation from the harshest controls is seen as caving in to the Western way of living with Covid. That line of thinking is simply wrong and dangerous.

It is true that other countries including the United States messed up their anti-Covid efforts big time, as evidenced by their high infection and mortality rates. Living with the virus is also certainly controversial as lifting restrictions has resulted in a renewed spike in cases and deaths. But at least this offers a way out from the pandemic, which China may not want to copy but can certainly learn from.

After all, China’s long-stated goal for fighting the pandemic has been to save lives, not to prove the merits of one system or ideology over another.

State media has made a big deal about how China’s tough controls save lives. That is certainly true, but anecdotal evidence also suggests that more people have died in many other ways because access to medicine or doctors has been severely restricted by lockdowns.

Even the suggestion that asymptomatic positive cases should be allowed to quarantine at home has been dismissed. Across the country, the authorities continue to build makeshift hospitals at breakneck speed to house infected people, which is not only costly but results in less-than-ideal accommodation.

On Wednesday night when a rainstorm hit Shanghai, videos of rainwater pouring down from the roofs of a few hastily constructed structures trended on social media.

China’s community officials feel strain of Shanghai Covid lockdown

At the time of writing, Shanghai had announced that it would gradually lift controls in neighbourhoods where there were no new cases for two weeks. But people’s movements are still being heavily restricted.

Given the fact that Shanghai’s infection rate has yet to peak, with daily symptomatic and asymptomatic cases totalling 27,719 as of Wednesday – a new record – it will probably be weeks before the city returns to some kind of normalcy.

How Shanghai emerges from this latest Covid onslaught is likely to influence what the rest of the country does next. It is high time that officials revived Deng’s maxim and “seek truth from facts” to make their virus policy more responsive to the public’s needs and concerns.