52 China The Economist April 30th 2022
WhatChinesepublic anger means
O
ne consequence of imposing a pandemic lockdown on
Shanghai, China’s worldliest and stroppiest city, is a stream of
smartphone videos showing officials being yelled at by locals. As
this metropolis of 25m people approaches a month of nearparaly
sis, these filmed confrontations have taken on a darker tone.
Socialmedia posts show lockedin residents shouting at visit
ing delegations of officials that they have no food, or that govern
ment rations are rotten when delivered. There are videos of Shang
hai citizens tearing down green metal fences that suddenly ap
peared around apartment blocks and streets designated as “hard
quarantine” sites, after covid19 cases were found nearby. Other
locals filmed their neighbours being beaten by whiteoveralled
guards for defying pandemic controls. A Shanghai blogger re
leased “Voices of April”, a sixminute compilation of protest slo
gans chanted from windows, citizens’ complaints livestreamed
from grim quarantine centres, anguished telephone calls to gov
ernment hotlines, and other recorded moments of discontent.
Shared widely as an online video, it was viewed more than 100m
times before censors set to work deleting every version they could
find. This draconian response was an own goal, as even relatively
sheltered, apolitical netizens across the country were given a
glimpse of censorship at work in real time.
These rare displays of public anger in tightly policed China
have made headlines worldwide. In the leafy embassy districts of
Beijing, 1,100km north of Shanghai, envoys ask one another
whether a crisis looms for the ruling Communist Party. As China’s
pandemic controls become ever more openly repressive, some
foreigners wonder whether growing brutality indicates that the
machinery of state is malfunctioning. Behind closed doors, for
eign diplomats and business bosses debate whether a public loss
of trust in the party’s competence might complicate the year’s big
political event: a congress expected to crown Xi Jinping China’s
supreme leader for a further five years, or even for life. Some of
those questions are the wrong ones to ask.
In a country with a free press, a functioning opposition or a po
litical system that set any store by the rights of individuals, scenes
of mass hunger in Shanghai, China’s most affluent city, would al
ready be a vulnerability for Mr Xi—especially when the concurrentlockdowns imposed on dozens of less privileged cities are added
to the tally sheet of China’s pandemiccontrol costs and benefits.
After all, for two years now Mr Xi has been lionised by propaganda
outlets as the “commanderinchief of a people’s war” against co
vid, whose stringent but benevolent strategies have saved mil
lions of lives, demonstrating the superiority of Communist Party
rule over decadent, libertyobsessed Western democracies.
Yet as it is, images of Shanghainese being clubbed as they tear
down fences do not by themselves mean that China’s machinery
of power is misfiring. Bossy, even arbitrary or irrational orders
that must be obeyed are a feature of Communist Party rule work
ing as intended, not a bug. China’s covid response is a utilitarian
experiment. To stop the virus from killing millions in a country
with lots of unhealthy, poorly vaccinated old people and a weak
healthcare system, leaders have spent two years locking down
cities and regions unlucky enough to harbour cases. In return,
most of China’s 1.4bn people have lived in an orderly, largely co
vidfree society, albeit one marked by intrusive surveillance and
movementtracking that most Westerners would never accept.
In China’s majoritarian system, minorities who resist the par
ty’s will must be crushed. In other contexts those minorities may
be ethnic, religious or ideological, or unlucky sorts in the way of a
party priority. In all cases, dissent is treated as sabotage. Some an
ger on display in Shanghai arguably stems from locals’ shock at
being on the wrong end of a minoritymajority divide for once.
If they were a bit less paranoid, party bosses might be some
what comforted by complaints heard in Shanghai. Citizens filmed
shouting at officials are demanding more government help, not
calling for a revolution. Even those silenced “Voices of April” are
hardly subversive. That video includes recordings of Shanghai
citizens pleading for officials to admit loved ones to hospital or to
distribute rations as promised. Party workers are heard sighing for
superiors to issue better orders. In another clip a lorry driver
thanks a kindly policeman for bringing him food. These voices fit
within Chinese traditions of citizens petitioning those in power
for aid or redress. Still they were censored.Plan B is Plan A with fences and sticks
Nor are China’s angry voices accusing party chiefs of having made
a mistake by pursuing a zerocovid strategy until now. Rather,
most are expressing disappointment at how badly it is working in
Shanghai and other cities, and alarm at its spiralling economic
and social costs. It does not help that party chiefs spent two years
overclaiming for policies that were always a leastbad option in a
country with China’s chronic health woes. Instead of reckoning
honestly with the tradeoffs inherent in their strict approach, offi
cials and propaganda outlets called it a wise and kindly choice that
helps all Chinese people. Then those same official voices quickly
pivoted back to their preferred pandemic narrative: the many
downsides of covid responses in the West. Now, the disadvantages
of China’s policies are in turn becoming hard to hide.
If party history is any guide, public anger is rarely by itself a
threat to Chinese leaders. Popular discontent matters when it
gives cover to rival factions within the elite, allowing them to ar
gue that poor performance is undermining the party’s claim to
rule. A flawless 20th Party Congress for Mr Xi later this year may
rest on eliminating all possible rivals, and making others carry the
can if covid continues to batter China. Before then,if partyleaders
are at all vulnerable, it is because they look incompetent,not be
cause their ruthlessness has been caught on camera.nChaguan
The politics of a bungled lockdown in Shanghai