For years now, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government insisted that his “Zero COVID” policy would “stand the test of history,” and vowed to punish anyone who questioned the approach, but, after widespread insurrection throughout the country, the Chinese Communist Party’s “Zero COVID” debacle is now being dismantled.
Yet mere days after spontaneous street protests broke out seeking an end to constant testing and lockdowns, with some taboo-busting demonstrators calling for Xi himself to step down, the Communist Party is swiftly moving to dismantle the core pieces of a strategy that made China a global outlier.
China on Wednesday eased a range of Covid restrictions, including allowing some people to quarantine at home rather than in centralized camps and scrapping test requirements to enter most public venues. That followed previous moves by major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen to wind back mass testing and sweeping lockdowns that pushed China’s economic growth to near a four-decade low.
The abrupt U-Turn amounts to a de facto admission of failure by Xi, who spent his first decade in office consolidating power and moving to stop Chinese people from organizing even for seemingly innocuous activities, like picking up trash. Now they suddenly have a new template for pushing back against the party that could potentially be applied to a wider range of grievances, including their ability to have a say in a political system now dominated by Xi alone.
“Politically the biggest problem for Xi is perhaps the consequence of backing down from public demands,” said Weifeng Zhong, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “Now that people have seen that chanting ‘Down with Xi Jinping’ can get them what they want, we should expect more disobedience down the road.”
MacDailyNews Take: The real power in China, and everywhere else, ultimately lies in the hands of the people, not in government bureaucrats.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.
The problem isn’t COVID. The problem is the illogical, unworkable, delusional, self-defeating authoritarian response to COVID.
The average age of a Foxconn worker is 23 (before the CCP drove them away with the threat of more quixotic lockdowns). A 23 year old who gets COVID might not even notice they have it. Protect those with co-morbidities who might be at risk of serious complications (don’t compel older retirees into a closed factory setting, CCP Cuomo impersonators).
Letting COVID simply wash through a population of healthy twenty-three-year-olds (many of whom have already acquired natural immunity) is the rational decision. — MacDailyNews, November 16, 2022
There’s no such thing as zero-COVID, but this year is the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th party congress, so the farce will continue until the politics no longer dictate tilting at windmills. Then COVID will be allowed to wash through China, as it already has around much of the world. – MacDailyNews, May 9, 2022
Clearly, Apple under Tim Cook had, has, and, for the foreseeable future, seems like it will continue to have far too much exposure to China and the CCP’s overbearing and often irrational whims.
Memo to China: There’s no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
As we’ve said for years now, for better and worse, Apple is wedded to China. It will take many years to even begin to extricate itself from this relationship, at least the the point where the company has some meaningful leverage that the CCP understands. – MacDailyNews, April 8, 2022
In general, human-transmissible coronaviruses do not disappear. There is no such thing as zero-COVID. Duh.
COVID-19 is here to stay. It will very likely become endemic, yet pose less danger over time. People will acquire immunity via vaccines (effectiveness TDB) and naturally as they contract and recover from variants like omicron since the partially-effective vaccines permit not only transmissibility, but also breakthrough infections. Influenza and the four human coronaviruses that cause common colds (OC43, 229E, NL63 and HKU1) are, of course, also endemic, but a combination of annual flu vaccines and acquired immunity means that sane societies tolerate the unavoidable seasonal deaths and illnesses they bring without requiring lockdowns, masks, social distancing, indefinite return-to-work delays, etc.
At which point, if ever, will some people decide that wasting away their short lives in abject fear of a bad flu, very likely engineered by China and partially funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is a hysterical self-defeating overreaction? – MacDailyNews, December 16, 2021
The COVID-19 data is clear: Stop the panic and end the total isolation… A severe economic disruption will very likely provoke the immeasurable costs of widespread unemployment, social isolation, and increased mental health issues, suicide rates, bankruptcies, civil unrest, crime, and war. – MacDailyNews, April 23, 2020
There are any number of countries where, prior to this ongoing COVID-19 collective behavior experiment, we could have imagined a compliant population capitulating to the random, illogical, and ever-changing whims of so-called “experts” and ignoramus politicians – actually allowing themselves to be quarantined, locked-down, restricted, put out of business, deprived of family and friends, tagged and tracked, digitally and otherwise, but not America. Obviously, we were wrong.
“The land of the free and the home of the brave?” Pfft. Seemingly just empty words today.
Yes, COVID-19 is real. Yes, COVID-19 is a contagious disease. Yes, COVID-19 can kill, especially those with underlying conditions who should be protected as best as possible. However, the reaction to COVID-19 has clearly been blown out of all proportion and the ramifications of such overreaction will be long-lasting and difficult, if not impossible, to overcome.
Those who have lived through this period (in other words, the vast majority of people) and who are still capable of rational thought, will understand implicitly how easily fear and bad data, especially as amplified, massaged, and repeated ad nauseam via mass and social media, can be used to control even so-called “free” people who, it seems, will cede their freedoms en masse with nary a bleat. – MacDailyNews, December 28, 2020
And you thought sheep were herdable animals. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
The real virus is the panic. – MacDailyNews, March 9, 2020
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Widespread insurrection across China?!?! Must be Trump’s and/ or Putin’s fault!
This was the one chance the citizens had to burn it all down
Burn it Down! Sounds familiar… BLM? Antifa?
Please, I hope they succeed on the behalf of the citizens of Hong Kong, Tibet, and the Uyghur regions. China must be held responsible for their human rights abuses.
To the people of China, well-done on rebelling against your rights-denying government. Now that you see what happens when you stand together…finish the job and move towards democracy!
Note to overreach governments the world over; you can’t trample on your citizens for ever.
Except that, MDN, we did have a lockdown here, and the resulting fallout ever since, so no, clearly it is not in the hands of the people. none of us asked for it, and a great many of us certainly didn’t vote for it. What is happening in China in that regard is awesome, sure; but why was it ever necessary in the first place? Remember the swine flu? Remember the lockdown for swine flu? no? That’s because there wasn’t one. There is still nothing ok or praiseworthy about the global exploitation of covid, which for healthy people is a bad flu. Unless we’d like to address the broader, general health of the broader, general public – WTF?? The Chinese are finally resisting two and a half years later when the majority of the world has moved on? Pfft.
Apologize for the typos. Phone typing is not ideal.