The Chinese Communist Party, through its state propaganda arms, made its strongest push yet this weekend to convince concerned foreign investors and outraged citizens that it will soon abandon its repressive “zero-Covid” policies, which require mass lockdowns, house arrests, and internment of thousands in quarantine camps.
The Communist Party has repeatedly insisted that its “zero-Covid” measures are necessary due to the severity of disease the virus causes, sometimes placing it in direct confrontation with its allies at agencies such as the World Health Organization (W.H.O.). Chinese officials claimed, however, not to document a single death attributable to Chinese coronavirus in the country between late May and late November. In that window, Beijing admitted to dozens of deaths of people by suicide, starvation, lack of access to basic medical care, or accidents at or in transit to quarantine camps – suggesting the alleged public health measures killed more people than the disease it was allegedly meant to contain.
The Chinese coronavirus pandemic began in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, growing from a localized outbreak to a pandemic thanks to Chinese Communist Party neglect and incompetence. Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported residents in Wuhan lamenting that they were under lockdown as recently as this weekend.
The lockdowns have prompted incessant protests since at least March 2020, when outraged residents in Wuhan’s province of Hubei brawled with police and overturned police cars in an attempt to cross into neighboring Jiangxi province. The protests swelled to a nationwide outcry last weekend, bringing hundreds to the streets in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, and several other cities.
The Chinese Communist Party initially responded to international media becoming aware of the protests by insisting that lockdowns and quarantine camps were necessary and that it would never “lie flat,” a derisive term it uses for countries that have mostly abandoned using the pandemic to violate the civil rights of its citizens, such as America. By Thursday, however, the state-run Global Times publication was declaring an end to “large-scale” lockdowns.
“I believe that in the next few days, most of the lockdown areas across China will be reopened, and the economy will begin to recover under the new epidemic prevention policies,” Global Times commentator Hu Xijin, who served as its top editor before stepping down last year, predicted.
“This time the recovery process will not be interrupted by the epidemic again,” he insisted, also predicting that all opposition to repressive Chinese communism would abruptly end. “As lockdowns are coming to an end, the biggest factor that leads to the public discontent will be eliminated. It will have a very positive effect on social stability.”
Hu admitting that “public discontent” exists deviates somewhat from the official Chinese government stance, which insists that the protests are the product of “hostile forces” and not a natural or genuine expression of the sentiments of the Chinese people.
On Sunday, Hu’s publication the Global Times reported, citing the Communist Party, that “at least a dozen cities across China” were preparing to ease lockdowns, testing requirements, and other civil rights violations. The newspaper insisted the alleged easing of restrictions was merely “symbolic” and not intended as a move towards “lying flat.”
“Those measures – seen as symbolic moves to ease the burden on community management and relieve the already strained public healthcare resources – should not be viewed as ‘lying flat’ in China’s [Chinese coronavirus] battle,” the state propaganda outlet proclaimed, “or ‘suddenly opening by loosening all [Chinese coronavirus] restrictions,’ some public health experts told the Global Times on Sunday.”
One such regime-approved “expert,” identified as “respiratory expert” Wang Guangfa, similarly insisted that any changes in policy were meant for “optimized” response, not for expanding freedoms.
“I don’t take current adjustment as a ‘lying flat’ move nor a complete opening-up but we have optimized our epidemic control measures in line with the characteristics of the virus variant,” Wang was quoted as saying, “striking a new balance between epidemic control and social and economic activities.”
The Global Times also noted that a top Chinese public health expert, Zhang Wenhong, called for a major shift in Chinese coronavirus policies, urging the goal of the measures to be limiting severe disease, not bring infections down to zero. Most major countries around the world made this policy shift a year or more ago.
“Through vaccination and drug treatment, we may have entered a phase where we can tame and control the virus,” Zhang claimed.
The Agence France-Presse (AFP) also translated some other Chinese regime operations changing their tone towards the virus, insisting a coronavirus infection would not necessarily mean death for most patients.
“After infection with the Omicron variant, the vast majority will have no or light symptoms, and very few will go on to have severe symptoms, this is already widely known,” a professor was quoted as saying in China Youth Daily, a communist regime publication. That message is in line with an unprecedented declaration last week by Sun Chunlan, the top Politburo official tasked with enforcing lockdowns, who admitted a year late that the omicron variant of Chinese coronavirus causes milder infection than previous iterations.
Chinese politics expert Willy Lam told AFP that he predicted “punishment of a lot of local officials” for human rights abuses during the acute lockdown phase in the near future, even though the central government ordered those local officials to act as they did, as a way of scapegoating to limit public outrage.
Multiple reports also suggested that any easing of restrictions that had occurred was neither consistently applied nor did residents trust officials who claimed an end to abuses.
“It’s lies – don’t listen to them,” an anonymous Beijing resident told Radio Free Asia (RFA) in a report published Friday. “They said yesterday it would be lifted today, but it was a lie. We’ve been under lockdown for more than a month now.”
In Shanghai, residents to RFA that Communist Party officials were telling people to stockpile food, a sign of a future lockdown underway, despite Sun’s announcement and the dramatic tone-shift in government media. A Shanghai resident said that officials had suggested that lockdowns, as Hu Xijin had said, of entire cities may be over, lockdowns of “buildings” were still possible at any time.
“Our compound is still locked down, and we’re heard nothing,” a Wuhan resident told RFA on Friday.
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