Parents have organized petitions pleading with the government not to separate children infected with the coronavirus from their families. Patients have demanded to talk to senior officials about poor conditions in isolation facilities. Residents have confronted officials with the containment policies they deem unfair or inhumane, and have subsequently shared recordings of those arguments online.
As the coronavirus rampages through Shanghai, in the city’s worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic, authorities have deployed their usual hard-nosed playbook to try to eradicate the transmission, no matter the cost. What was different is the response: an outburst of public discontent rarely seen in China since the chaotic early days of the pandemic, in Wuhan.
The Shanghai crisis is becoming more than just a public health challenge. It is also a political test of the zero-tolerance approach in general, on which the Communist Party has anchored its legitimacy.
For the better part of the past two years, the Chinese government has quelled most of the domestic criticism of its zero-tolerance Covid strategy, through a mix of censorship, arrests and success in keeping cases low. But in Shanghai, which has registered more than 70,000 cases since March 1, that is proving more difficult.
Shanghai is China’s most populous metropolis, its glittering commercial heart. It is home to a vibrant middle class and many of China’s business, cultural and academic elite. A large proportion of the Chinese foreign-educated live in Shanghai, and the per capita disposable income is the highest in the country. Even in a country where dissent is dangerous, many there have long found ways to demand response from the government and take control of their own lives.
“I’m just too angry, too sad,” said Kristine Wu, a 28-year-old tech company employee who was visited at home by two police officers after criticizing the city’s Communist Party leader on social media. She filmed her defiant confrontation with them, asking why they wasted time harassing her when they could help those in need. She then shared a photo of the encounter on social media, despite the officers’ warnings. (It was later censored.)
“I thought, whatever, I’ll just go for it,” said Ms Wu, who hadn’t considered herself political before the lockdown. “I used to live quite comfortably, and before anything happened, everyone was very polite, very obedient. Now all that has just crumbled.”
For the time being, the government looks largely unmoved. A Chinese deputy prime minister visited Shanghai and demanded that officials focus “without hesitation” on eliminating cases. Public health experts have warned that China is unprepared for living with the coronavirus, as just over half of over-80s were fully vaccinated by the end of March. In addition, the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, has held up the country’s suppression of the virus as proof of the superiority of his governance model; maintaining that line will be especially important this year, when he is expected to claim an unprecedented third term.
But by shutting down Shanghai, an economic engine that makes up 4 percent of China’s gross domestic product, authorities have raised questions about the cost of their approach, especially in light of the highly portable, relatively mild Omicron variant. . If even Shanghai could be cut off, people would worry there’s no limit to how far the government could go, said Lynette Ong, a political scientist at the University of Toronto.
“The fact that Shanghai is being shut down suggests we are pretty close to the red line, to the tolerable limit of how defensible zero-Covid is,” said Professor Ong. “This is a big city of 25 million people and it’s a huge challenge to lock down – it’s close to people’s psychological breaking point.”
For most of the pandemic, Shanghai offered an alternative view of China’s containment strategy. While other places where even a few cases were detected went into widespread closures, Shanghai isolated individual buildings. dr. Zhang Wenhong, an infectious disease expert who helped guide the city’s response, attracted admiration across the country for advocating a more restrained approach. The Global Times, a nationalist state-owned company, praised Shanghai’s “precise and targeted containment.”
Even after the number of cases rose to record highs last month, officials insisted that Shanghai could not be closed due to its economic importance.
But the cases continued to rise, and central government probably got nervous, said Yanzhong Huang, director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University.
“They were concerned that if this situation cannot be brought under control in a short period of time, it would threaten social and economic stability,” said Dr. huang. “It could also derail the leadership transition in the coming months.”
However, the introduction of the more heavy-handed methods has caused chaos, shocking a city with one of the country’s highest standards of medical care. At least two people with asthma have died after being denied care by health professionals based on Covid protocols. Patients with chronic illnesses have indefinitely postponed surgery or were unable to obtain medication, forcing them to post desperate requests for help online. Healthcare facilities for the elderly are under pressure from outbreaks.
The pride Shanghai residents had at their city’s response has turned to horror and indignation. When local officials asked residents of a neighborhood to sing patriotic songs to boost morale, they instead joined a chorus of curses, according to images circulating online. After authorities confirmed they were separating infected children from their uninfected parents, a petition to isolate children with mild or no symptoms at home gathered more than 24,000 signatures in three hours before it was censored. This week, residents in the Baoshan suburb pounded pots and pans, shouting, “We want supplies! We don’t want to starve to death.”
Some reactions were more light-hearted, but still reflect the appalling conditions. Three local rappers wrote a viral song about panicked messages.
Even city officials have expressed frustration with the new direction. In a leaked recording of a phone conversation between a Shanghai resident and an alleged employee of the city’s Center for Disease Control, the staff member said she believed tackling the epidemic had become politicized. (Although officials did not confirm the authenticity of the recording, they later said they were investigating its contents.)
Amid ongoing resistance, officials have made some concessions allowing certain infected children to stay with their parents this week and deliver delivery drivers back to work.
Jin Dongyan, a virologist at the University of Hong Kong, said Shanghai’s educated, connected population was more likely than people elsewhere in China to be skeptical about the measures, especially given the less seriousness of the Omicron variant. Chinese propaganda has often emphasized the dangers of the virus.
In Shanghai, “a lot of people have a good understanding of the disease and the virus, as well as what’s happening in other places” who have pulled out of the strictest restrictions, said Dr. jin. “They just don’t feel like this is going to work.”
Jeremy Wu, a 26-year-old Shanghai resident, now wonders if he should have moved back to China from Australia, where he attended graduate school.
Mr. Wu returned to Shanghai in the fall of 2020, believing the city would be one of the few places in China where officials would keep the number of cases low and avoid excessive restrictions. When his friends were locked up in the northwestern city of Xi’an earlier this year, he felt relieved in Shanghai.
“As I sympathized with my friends, I thought in my mind, ‘Thank God this would never happen to Shanghai,’ said Mr. Wu.
“What a ‘da lian’ moment that is for me,” he added, using Chinese slang to suggest punching himself in the face if proven otherwise.
Yet, despite all the discontent in Shanghai, support for zero Covid remains high in much of China. Nationalist social media users have accused the city of arrogance or lack of patriotism for taking its own approach initially. Even in Shanghai, some have said the city should have been shut down sooner.
The central government leaned on propaganda about the need for drastic action in Shanghai, and recently sent more than 2,000 military medics and thousands of medical professionals from other provinces to the city.
Chen Daoyin, a former assistant professor at Shanghai University of Political Science and Law, said Beijing had clearly doubled down on Covid and put Shanghai on par with the rest of the country.
“In a system like China’s, where politics rules everything,” he said, “it’s impossible for you to go any other way.”
Reporting and research contributed by Joy Dong† Li You and John Liu†