Why China Has A Zero Covid Policy

China’s internal propaganda machine is battling the external world, nearly 2 years into the Covid-19 pandemic. The fight is over the usefulness (or not) of the “Zero-Covid” policy, where China’s goal is to eliminate the virus, not manage it, and the costs linked to that approach.

China’s borders are nearly closed since March 2020, and lockdowns are clamped at numerous places due to the contagious Delta variant, and hundreds of infections are arising. Delta’s real threat is that most are domestically transmitted cases, not imported ones! Schools, trains, transport, everything has been affected.

Officials are being punished for mistakes on their watch, and citizens face harshness. Pandemic crimes like illegal hunting attract heavy penalties (approximately 100,000 yuan). Tourists get locked up on no notice if even one case comes up. Every medicine buyer is being registered and tracked at every pharmacy (or lose your license). Many pets are being killed inside homes, by officials, citing transmission risks.

China is rejecting global reports that find this approach unsustainable. Chinese papers criticise America for valuing ‘money over life’, and claim that the world is jealous of China’s economic rise. What’s happening in China is a giant utilitarian experiment. The majority should be given a normal life at the cost of the minority (those infected), who stand to lose their dignity, privacy and liberty.

The idea that the majority should be taken care of is generally accepted because citizens know that outside major cities, health systems are not robust. Rural areas lack proper doctors. Closed borders only affect expatriate Chinese and their local families, but not 87% Chinese without any passports.

This Chinese method cannot work in democracies, but officially speaking, the collective Chinese sacrifice has produced a remarkable result - only 6,000 dead in a 140 crore population, while more than 8 lakh are dead in the United States with a population of 32 crore. It seems that the data may be fake, but not entirely off the mark, as large outbreaks could not be hidden. Most life in China is carrying on normally, and ‘strictness for the greater good’ is what citizens have accepted.

Chinese communists face the real risk of citizens discovering the possibility that excessive harshness was only to protect local officials (a minority). In Chengdu, 82,000 people were called for testing when found that their mobiles were within 800 metres of a suspected case. Some doctors wrote an open letter saying that such mass testing needs to be guided by science, and not panic. The public may get wary, and stop cooperating altogether.

The communists say that whatever they are doing is for the love of the people. Foreigners stuck in China feel that sight of a normal outside world will make citizens very restless. The media is avoiding that possibility, by constantly pushing the narrative that the West is a “death-stalked hellhole”. Those who are locked-down, whose livelihoods are crushed, are at a loss (the minority). Chinese leaders are waiting for potent vaccines and antiviral drugs to allow safe opening. Foreign vaccines are not being approved, to not allow the perception that West is better (One Party Rule is better). The great risk is that newer mutations rise - that will kill the present strategy.

The authoritarian regimes can go to any extent to protect and preserve their unilateral power.