por Lucas Cavalcanti dos Santos
An overview of the events
Mass protests burst throughout China, triggered by a fire on a residential building that killed ten people in Ürümqi, the capital of Xinjiang, on November, 25. Videos uploaded in real-time on Weibo, a microblogging platform similar to Twitter, caused outrage among internet users for what seemed to be the struggle of firefighters trying to access the building to put off the fire (LAU, 2022). They speculated that the tough Covid lockdown measures implemented in the region since August, which included physical barricades, got in the rescuers’ way and ultimately led to avoidable deaths. This incident set off a wave of solidarity for the victims across China — not because of the tragedy itself, but because it was perceived as a consequence of the overwhelming zero-Covid policies.
As rage spread online, protesters took their anger to the streets in open defiance against the authorities. In a matter of hours, demonstrations erupted across major cities, including Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai, Wuhan, and others (JIANGTAO, 2022). Although protests are common in China (WRIGHT, 2022), these are of a rare nature and carry greater significance for three main reasons: they are directed at the central government and its official zero-Covid policy, rather than only at the local authorities; they touch politically sensitive topics, rather than mere day-to-day, material issues; finally, they are massive and multi-city, rather than small and localized.
To understand the motivations behind these events, it’s necessary to grasp the Chinese approach to fighting the pandemic. According to a report of the World Health Organization (WHO)-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease (2020), China’s initial response to the outbreak of an unknown virus was ambitious, agile, and aggressive. Most of all, it started as a national approach that promoted universal temperature monitoring, mask mandates, hygiene campaigns, rapid case detection, contact tracing, and isolation, along with bans on travel, public gatherings, and ‘stay at home’ orders. Despite the limitations on the freedom of movement and the increase of surveillance, these measures proved extremely successful in containing the virus and preventing deaths at a time when pharmaceutical methods were unavailable (WHO-China, p. 16-17). However, as the pandemic evolved, knowledge was acquired, vaccination was carried out, and the public health system adapted, the official Covid policy consistently shifted to incorporate these changes, adjusting to provincial, county, and community realities (ibid.).
Later, starting in August 2021, China adopted a strategy called “Dynamic zero-Covid” (LIU et al., 2022). As the name suggests, this strategy still aimed to pursue zero Covid. But it became “dynamic”, i.e., aggressive restrictions such as lockdowns were relaxed nationally but implemented quickly, precisely, and even more assertively wherever a new outbreak was identified to prevent it from spreading. This contrasts with broader relaxations around the world, as many countries “learned to live with the virus”. So far, however, this dynamic strategy has also proved successful from a public health perspective, as evidenced by Johns Hopkins University data. According to JHU, China has the lowest fatality rate in the world: 16.155 deaths, or 1.14 deaths per 100,000 population, compared to 1.084.422 deaths, or 329.15 deaths per 100,000 population in the United States.
Thus, essentially, the continuity of harsh containment policies with no end in sight — despite its “dynamic” character — is at the center of the civil unrest that followed the fire in Ürümqi. In addition to this, western news outlets have also highlighted the political traits of these protests, like calls — not widespread — for Xi Jinping to resign (KANG; WU, 2022). A piece in The Guardian (CHAN, 2022) linked the recent events back to the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, which saw students demand democracy and freedom of speech, among other liberalization reforms, and ended with the declaration of martial law after an escalation that caused civilian deaths and injuries. NPR reported that protesters bypassed online censorship (RESTREPO, 2022). Finally, The New York Times brought attention to those who defied the low tolerance for open dissent through puns, memes, and by holding blank sheets of paper, symbolizing the curtailment of free speech (CHE; CHIEN, 2022).
What do the protests actually mean?
Nobody can deny that the Chinese Communist Party’s approach to the Covid health crisis, notwithstanding its effectiveness, comes with great economic and human costs. These vary from attacks on abstract values highlighted by ideological western discourses to more concrete problems that pile up with each new day of severe restrictions.
On one hand, some point to increased state surveillance, and curtailment of civil liberties and individual rights, as previously mentioned. On the other, there are more tangible costs — at least from the Chinese perspective —, such as economic disruptions and people’s inability to work, to buy food and other basic supplies, to socially interact, and even deaths caused by delayed medical care due to movement restrictions (Wang, 2022). For The New York Times, Wang writes that “the world’s harshest Covid restrictions exemplify how Xi Jinping’s authoritarian excesses have rewritten Beijing’s long-standing social contract with its people”. Her argument is that the social contract between Beijing and the Chinese people established after the protests of 1989 in Tiananmen Square implicitly meant the population would get stability and comfort in return for the political limitations. But she says that Covid zero policies imposed more restrictions and took away that stability and comfort.
By mentioning the “social contract”, Wang touches on a vital topic. In Chinese society, common cultural values tend to privilege social order and harmony over the abstract individual rights valued in other parts of the world (CHU et al., 2008, p. 21). A study published in The Diplomat (ZHU et al., 2021) has found that mainland China respondents favor a high level of state capacity while being indifferent to whether it is democratic or authoritarian. They also strongly reject a weak state, democratic or not. In other words, political legitimacy in China is significantly based on the “state’s capacity and willingness to mobilize resources proactively toward predetermined goals — whether that means boosting economic development or swiftly responding to external challenges such as natural disasters”. The study notes this works along with propaganda to portray democracy in its liberal sense negatively. But participants gathered by CEBRI (2020, p. 359) noted that “China is not against democracy; it’s rather a central value to the Chinese self-identity” and that “the Chinese ideal is to have support for democracy in lower government, and as moving up the chain of political command, the system should become more meritocratic”.
With these considerations in mind, the significance of the protests can be more critically understood. For this, we can turn to Manya Koetse, a researcher on China and editor of What’s on Weibo, an independently-run news site that sheds light on trending topics of the Chinese digital culture and social media. According to Koetse (2022), it is clear that people disagree with each other regarding the recent protests. While many support the protests, many disagree with the demands and expressed that despite the inconvenient restrictions, they still fear the pandemic and thus support caution on relaxing public-health measures.
She classifies people in three factions. On one side, those in favor of anti-epidemic measures fear that relaxing restrictions could lead to many deaths, mostly of the elderly and children. They believe themselves to be reasonable and condemn the protesters for acting based on emotions or selfishness. On the other side, there are those who support the protesters and want the lockdowns to end because its social and economic costs are too high. They criticize the previous faction for relying on fear instead of reason, or for being privileged in being able to carry on despite the harsh restrictions. Finally, the third faction consists of those in the middle, who want a solution that partially satisfies both sides.
Koetse’s accounts remind us of the obvious but often forgotten fact that in most societies — especially those which are populous and diverse like China — things are never one-sided. Protests are seldom, if ever, supported by everyone. So one must beware of headlines that portray the demands of protesters as if they were echoed by the whole of Chinese Society. In most cases, this one included, opposite sides both are right in their own ways. At the same time that it’s fair for the protesters to oppose overly strict constraints that heavily affect their lives and in some cases lead to serious suffering — psychological, physical, and material — it’s also legitimate to worry about the potential and massive loss of lives due to an unstructured reopening. But the world is an ugly reality where perfect solutions do not exist. Every decision, especially on public policies, are trade-offs. Every time that a choice is made for having, doing or giving something, it implicitly means not having, not doing, or not giving something else.
What comes next?
In this sense, if the government reacts to the protests by increasing violent repression and simultaneously reaffirming an unchanged Covid-zero policy, thus ignoring the demands of the population for a more relaxed approach, then the CCP will merely nurture a bigger problem for the future. That is, the discontentment of the Chinese people will remain latent and increasing, like in a pressure cooker, until it eventually explodes in unpredictable and potentially dangerous ways for a party whose legitimacy is largely based on social stability. On the other hand, if the CCP is responsive to the demonstrators’ calls for relaxing the pandemic restrictions, it will likely keep control of the situation and maintain domestic stability. However, it’s important to notice that moving on from the Covid-zero policy will require diligent measures to avoid a sudden increase of deaths by Covid in a population largely unexposed to the virus and greatly consisting of elders, many of which refuse to get vaccinated (DONG, 2022).
So far, it seems like the CCP is following the second path, of responsiveness to the population. Local governments, as well as the central one, are already lifting the most severe Covid restrictions. People with mild or no symptoms and those identified as “close contacts” of infected individuals can now isolate at home rather than being sent to quarantine facilities (MAO, 2022). Severe lockdowns will continue, but they will be imposed on more targeted areas and affect fewer people at a time. Their duration will also significantly decrease from up to months to a few days if no new cases are found. Frequent tests and regional apps for tracking movement and testing history are also being dismissed as a requirement for entering most buildings and public transport (SHEPHERD; LI, 2022). Additionally, Chinese state media has shifted its Covid discourse from highlighting the severity of the virus to addressing the mild symptoms of the omicron variant, as well as mentioning the “zero” term of official policies less frequently (ibid.).
This transition, albeit very real and already in progress, is probably going to be gradual as many of the elderly still need to be vaccinated. Besides, authorities certainly will watch closely the effects that these changes will have on the numbers of cases and deaths. If the public health system manages to keep fatalities under control, China is likely to finally adapt to living with the virus. This scenario will greatly benefit people’s well-being, probably increasing their approval of the regime. And it will also benefit the country’s economy, which saw lockdowns hugely disrupt manufacturing hubs and ports, decreasing its growth pace. If, however, deaths skyrocket and get out of control, the world will likely watch the Covid-zero policy coming back even more energetically in a desperate attempt of the CCP to not only avoid millions of fatalities but also to save what became a central part of the party’s discourse of competence which ultimately supports the legitimacy of the regime. That is, the success it achieved in managing the global health crisis when compared to major western powers. The initial months of 2023 will be key to knowing how it will unfold.
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