Sun Chunlan, China’s vice premier and COVID-19 czar, sat at a conference table surrounded by health experts wearing masks. “With the weakening of the pathogenicity of omicron, the popularity of vaccination, [and] the accumulation of experience in prevention and control, China is facing a new situation and new tasks,” Beijing’s state media quoted her as saying during a National Health Commission meeting last Wednesday.
It was not exactly a revocation of the zero-COVID policy China has pursued with relentless and sometimes merciless zeal during the pandemic, a policy that has disrupted the lives of millions and battered the economy.
But coming on the heels of countrywide protests on university campuses and city streets — and coming from a key architect of the draconian COVID-19 curbs that fueled such anger — Sun’s statement signaled that an adjustment was likely in the works.
Sure enough, her remarks were quickly followed by reports that local authorities would scale back mass testing and allow at least some infected people to isolate at home, rather than hauling them off to makeshift hospitals known as fangcang. Major municipalities such as Guangzhou, Chongqing and even Beijing lifted some restrictions late last week — easing that, coupled with a heavy police presence, kept the streets quieter this past weekend.
At the same time, however, the fundamental factors that have compelled China to maintain zero-COVID for so long have not changed. First and foremost, from the government’s perspective, the policy is closely identified with President Xi Jinping, making a hasty shift awkward.
“The Chinese government is stuck in a corner created by itself,” said Hang Yang, a former Chinese diplomat who now lives in Australia. “Zero-COVID is a signature policy for Xi. … To have a U-turn would be a blow to his authority” immediately after he secured a third term at the Communist Party’s national congress in October.
There are also concerns about how well China’s population is shielded by vaccinations, especially seniors. And alongside the widespread frustration with restrictions, there is still palpable fear of the virus itself, stoked by official messaging meant to justify the zero-COVID policy. Last month, a 32-year-old woman in Guangzhou who tested positive died by suicide after being sent to a fangcang. According to local reports, she was afraid of the virus and worried about being stigmatized for catching it.
“They’ve very successfully persuaded people that zero-COVID is a great concept,” said Ben Cowling, virologist and professor at the University of Hong Kong’s medical school.
Now the government must thread a fine needle: reshaping perceptions of the virus threat and gradually backing away from zero-COVID, while safeguarding public health and keeping a lid on more protests.
If nothing else, the demonstrations that snowballed in late November — which former Tsinghua University lecturer Wu Qiang called “the biggest act of resistance in China since the Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989” — underscored that the status quo was not sustainable.
The trigger for the outburst was a deadly fire in a locked-down building in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang autonomous territory. Frustration boiled over as the extent of restrictions nationwide reached a level comparable to earlier this year when Shanghai was locked down for two months.
Data from Japanese investment bank Nomura shows that as of late November, lockdowns of varying severity were affecting around 512 million people in 68 Chinese cities, accounting for nearly half the country’s gross domestic product. The province of Shandong recently said it would invest more than 23 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) to build a fangcang isolation facility, while Guangzhou — one of the localities hardest hit by infections in recent weeks — said it had opened 19 such sites.
Beijing did tweak its COVID playbook in November prior to the demonstrations, saying it would make testing more targeted and reduce what was described as “inconveniences” for residents. Markets soared on this news, and rallied again in late November after Sun’s remarks and cities’ easing moves despite surging cases. The NASDAQ Golden Dragon Index, which tracks China stocks listed in the U.S., recorded its best performance ever, closing the month 42% higher.
But at times state media has also reiterated the benefits of zero-COVID, attributing the policy’s success to Xi, the “commander-in-chief of the people’s war” against the virus.
Only the day before Sun’s hint that change was in store, China’s foreign ministry vehemently defended zero-COVID. Asked about the widespread protests and whether the government would consider ending the policy, Zhao Lijian, the ministry’s spokesperson, was speechless for several minutes before doubling down. A transcript of the media briefing was published without the question.
The subtle shift seemed to gain momentum later in the week. On Thursday during a meeting in Beijing with European Council President Charles Michel, Xi himself conceded the protests had been caused by frustrations over COVID policies, according to international media reports. By the end of the week, several city governments had relaxed testing rules and lifted lockdowns to the relief of residents.
Yet some officials continued to urge caution.
In the city of Jinzhou, Liaoning province, epidemic prevention authorities wrote on Thursday that restrictions imposed to clear out infections “should not be given up,” saying it would be “a pity” if the virus “can be cleared but is not [completely eradicated].”
Looking ahead, Johns Hopkins University sociologist Ho-fung Hung predicted that “what we’ll see is this selective opening, to see what happens.” He explained there will be “a selective compromise,” arresting and cracking down on protesters while easing restrictions in parts of the country to gradually navigate out of zero-COVID.
One reason authorities are anxious is China’s lagging vaccination rate, especially for the most vulnerable seniors.
While more than 90% of the country’s 1.4 billion people are double vaccinated, only about 40% of those over the age of 80 have received boosters. Estimates for how many people could die in a full-fledged reopening have ranged from 1.3 million to 2 million.
The propaganda department of Zhejiang province said on WeChat that the low vaccination rate among the elderly was still an obstacle to easing curbs and urged people not to abandon zero-COVID efforts. “For normal people like us, we cannot deny our pandemic control policy, the dynamic zero-COVID policy, because certain places have wandered off in policy execution without precise and scientific measures,” the post read.
During the first media briefing by the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council after the weekend protests, authorities said they would strive to boost the rates for the under-vaccinated elderly.
Some residents still support strict controls, taking state warnings of lasting damage from COVID-19 to heart. When protesters at an iPhone factory in Zhengzhou clashed with riot police last month, they were rallying against concerns that colleagues suspected of having COVID were living in the same dormitories, not restrictions.
A Shenzhen resident who asked to use the pseudonym Zhang San spoke to Nikkei Asia on the second day of a three-day lockdown of her building. She said she still sees the COVID restrictions bringing her “greater benefits” than a full reopening, as she was advised against getting vaccinated due to an immune system issue.
“If the country reopens, it’s a great danger for people like us who have health issues,” Zhang said.
Changes in official pronouncements appear aimed at putting such citizens at ease to lay the groundwork for a broader return to normal. Beijing News, a paper affiliated with the local government, last week published a 5,500-word story filled with interviews with people who had caught the virus and recovered. This went viral on Weibo, China’s alternative to Twitter.
The story stood in contrast to one published in early November by the top Communist Party outlet, the People’s Daily, about how “long COVID” posed a serious issue for countries like the U.S. and South Korea, citing overseas news reports that few in China have access to without a virtual private network.
Mark Williams, chief Asia economist at think tank Capital Economics, said during a webinar last week that he sees a shift in the narrative on zero-COVID. “That’s the sort of thing that you obviously would have thought would have been done a while ago, but it’s starting to happen,” Williams said.
Taylor Loeb, analyst at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said recent state reports on recovering cases are part of an effort to “recalibrate the propaganda on the severity of COVID.”
Loeb suggested the new line of messaging might gain traction as infections spread. “As more people catch the virus, they will presumably have firsthand experience to back up the propaganda.”
The consensus among public health experts and China watchers is that there is still no easy way out.
Manoj Kewalramani, a China specialist who chairs the Indo-Pacific studies program at India’s Takshashila Institution think tank, said that minor local adjustments have begun but that he does not think “a sharp U-turn on the dangers of infection” will have the desired impact. What is needed, he said, is a stronger “focus on vaccination and messages to local governments to ease implementation.”
As winter approaches amid a chorus of warnings about infections ripping through the under-vaccinated population, widespread public puzzlement remains.
Ubiquitous PCR testing booths may be gradually dismantled — some in Beijing were reportedly hauled away in recent days — but entering some shops and other venues still requires proof of tests. The Chinese newspaper Economic Observer acknowledged the confusion with an opinion piece headlined, “You guess, you guess, you guess.”
“Lots of people say it’s over,” the author wrote. “I also don’t know. It’s true there are lots of changes … what exactly is happening? You guess.”
Zhang Taisu, professor of law at Yale Law School wrote, summed up the dilemma in a newsletter.
“Had the central government been able to maintain a higher level of policy consistency and coherence, it may well have been able to ease, or at least suppress, public unhappiness enough to make it to next spring without a major social blow-up,” Zhang wrote. “Instead, by muddling through its messaging after the party congress, it now finds itself in the tightest sociopolitical circumstances China has experienced in three decades.”
Pak Yiu and Echo Wong are Nikkei staff writers
