BEIJING-
As China’s ruling Communist Party holds a congress this week, many Beijing residents are focused on an issue not on the formal agenda: Will the end of the meeting bring about a relaxation of China’s sometimes draconian policies of ” COVID zero” that are affecting lives and the economy?
It seems to be an illusion. As the world moves toward a post-pandemic lifestyle, many in China have resigned themselves to queuing several times a week for COVID-19 tests, restrictions on their travel to other regions, and the possibility that they will always present from a community closure.
“There is nothing we can do,” Zhang Yiming, 51, said this week in a park in Beijing. “If we look at the situation abroad, like the United States, where more than 1 million people have died, right? In China, while it is true that some aspects of our life are not convenient, such as travel and economy, it seems that there is not a good solution.”
People are waiting for the party congress, which ends on Saturday, for two reasons. The meeting, which takes place every five years and sets the national agenda for the next five years, may send signals of possible changes in policy direction.
Second, authorities always tighten controls (COVID-19 and others) before and during a major event to try to remove interruptions or distractions so that they can relax controls when the event is over.
However, any hope of relief appears to have faded before Congress. The Communist Party’s newspaper, the People’s Daily, published a series of op-eds on the effectiveness of China’s “COVID-zero” approach, and health officials said last week that China must stick to it.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping praised the policy at the opening ceremony of the congress. He said that he had prioritized and protected people’s health and safety and made a “tremendous achievement in striking a balance between the response to the epidemic and economic and social development.”
After an initial outbreak in early 2020 that killed more than 4,000 people and overwhelmed hospitals and morgues, China managed to largely control the virus while other countries were overwhelmed by it, a contrast touted in Communist Party propaganda. .
Then came Omicron in late 2021. China had to employ increasingly widespread restrictions to control the fastest-spreading variant, locking down entire cities and beginning regular testing of virtually the entire population of 1.4 billion people.
The measures have generated latent discontent, fueled by instances of harsh enforcement that in some cases had tragic consequences.
During a two-month lockdown in Shanghai last spring, videos widely shared on social media showed officials breaking down apartment doors to drag unwanted residents into quarantine facilities. The children were also separated from their parents, because one or the other was infected.
Cases of hospitals denying treatment due to pandemic rules sparked outrage, including a woman in labor who lost her baby after she was not allowed to enter a hospital during Xi’s city lockdown. an because he was unable to show a negative result for COVID-19. 19 test result.
While public protests are relatively rare in China, some people took to the streets in Shanghai and the northeastern city of Dandong to protest harsh and lengthy lockdowns.
Last week, three days before the opening of the congress, banners were dropped on an elevated highway calling for Xi’s ouster and an end to the “COVID zero” policy. The incident spread to at least one other city, where photos shared on Twitter showed similar statements posted at a bus stop in Xi’an.
Andy Chen, a senior analyst at Trivium China, a Beijing-based policy consultancy, said restrictions beyond the party’s congress should come as no surprise.
“All the conditions that have forced the government to implement COVID-0 have not really changed,” he said, highlighting the lack of an effective vaccine and the absence of strong home quarantine rules.
Although the vaccines are widely available, local Chinese versions don’t work as well as Pfizer, Moderna and other shots developed elsewhere. China has also resisted vaccination mandates, keeping vaccination rates low. By mid-October, 90% had received two shots, but only 57% received a booster shot.
Beijing authorities have doubled down on hard-line policies against the coronavirus during the congress.
Highway checkpoints entering the city are heavily guarded, and everyone who enters must display a “green” code on a mobile phone app to prove they have not traveled to medium- or high-risk areas.
Some express bus lines between Beijing and the neighboring city of Tianjin and Hebei province have been suspended since Oct. 12.
Anyone who has been to a city, district or neighborhood where a single coronavirus case has been found in seven days is banned from entering the Chinese capital.
Within the city, the daily lives of residents are dictated by their health codes. They must use an app to scan the QR code of any facility they enter to display their status and record their whereabouts.
People are not allowed to enter office buildings, shopping malls, restaurants and other public places without a green code and a negative coronavirus test result within 72 hours, and sometimes less. The policy means that most of Beijing’s more than 21 million residents are tested for coronavirus at least two to three times a week.
And there is always the risk of a sudden crash. Officials in hazmat suits guarded entrances to gated communities this week in Fengtai district, where five neighborhoods have been classified as high-risk. Residents were not allowed to leave their compound and some shops were forced to close.
While the party congress has not provided the watershed moment some had hoped for, it may become the point where the government begins to lay the groundwork for a long process of easing restrictions, said Dr. Yanzhong Huang, director of the Center for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University and an expert on public health in China.
Some factors suggest the government will be in no rush to open up, including broad acceptance of the policy among those who are downtrodden but have not experienced prolonged or repeated lockdowns.
“The vast, vast majority of the population are going about their lives, unaffected, and that is a much better policy from a government perspective to implement than, for example, imposing a vaccination mandate on the population,” Chen said.
But Huang noted growing signs of social instability, especially among the middle class and urban residents.
“I think the question is whether it’s reached a tipping point where people really find that this is no longer acceptable,” he said. “We can no longer tolerate that. It remains to be seen even in the big cities, you know, how willing people are to tolerate draconian measures.”
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Ji reported from Bangkok. Associated Press video producers Olivia Zhang and Wayne Zhang contributed.