50 China The Economist November 13th 2021
WhyChinahasa zerocovid policy
N
early twoyears into the covid19 pandemic, China’s propa
ganda machine is locked in a futile argument with the outside
world. The row is about whether this giant country is paying too
high a price for its “zerocovid” policy. China’s attempts to elimi
nate the virus, rather than merely manage it, are certainly costly.
They have largely closed China’s borders for 19 months. Dozens of
city districts, towns and counties are enduring lockdowns as the
highly contagious Delta variant and an early cold snap cause a
flareup of infections. There are several hundred cases of the dis
ease nationwide. Many of them are local transmissions rather
than imports from abroad, underscoring Delta’s perils. Controls
include roadblocks manned by police in protective suits, closed
schools, cancelled trains and testing of millions of residents.
With officials facing punishment for cases on their watch,
grassroots harshness abounds. The northern city of Heihe has de
clared a “people’s war”, with rewards of up to 100,000 yuan
($15,600) for residents who report such pandemic crimes as illegal
hunting. A county in Inner Mongolia locked nearly 10,000 tourists
in hotels for two weeks to smother an outbreak. Two pharmacies
in suburban Beijing lost their licences for selling feverreducing
medicines to a couple without logging their names in a virus
tracking database. The customers, who had earlier visited areas
with covid cases and later tested positive, are being prosecuted for
failing to report to a fever clinic. Citing possible transmission
risks, officials in cities including Chengdu, Harbin and Wuxi en
tered the homes of quarantined locals and killed their pet cats.
Officials reject foreign reports that call such measures unsus
tainable. “It’s simply not right to question China’s efforts to elim
inate the virus,” complained Xinhua, a state news agency, citing
the country’s “robust” economy and calling travel curbs a “minor
inconvenience”. Hu Xijin, the editor of a tabloid newspaper, says
foreigners are jealous of China’s virusfighting record, and char
ges that America has eased pandemic controls because it values
“money over life”. In fact, the two sides are talking past one anoth
er if they focus on how strict zerocovid policies are. It is more rel
evant to ask who feels the pain from those controls. They are best
understood as a giant utilitarian experiment. To help the majority
enjoy an orderly, covidfree existence, a hapless minority—notably those who catch the virus or are suspected of contact with car
riers—must sacrifice individual liberties, privacy and dignity.
A focus on the interests of the majority resonates with many
Chinese. They remember images of chaos in Wuhan last year, as
the virus overwhelmed hospitals in that city of 10m. They know
that the health system is weaker outside big urban centres. Many
doctors in rural clinics lack university degrees. Intensivecare
beds are rare. Americanstyle pandemic policies could have led to
millions of deaths. As for closed borders, which cause anguish to
expatriates and Chinese with family overseas, they do not greatly
pain the 87% of the population without passports.
Many citizens of democratic countries would not tolerate half
the rules imposed on China in this pandemic. But the collective
sacrifices of the Chinese have produced something remarkable. In
a country of 1.4bn people, the official total death toll from the pan
demic is under 6,000, compared with almost 808,000 excess
deaths in America, which has less than onequarter of China’s
population. Some scepticism of China’s statistics is reasonable,
given that officials in Wuhan, where the outbreak was first detect
ed, concealed the virus for weeks in late 2019 and early 2020. Yet if
large outbreaks were still being concealed today, control systems
would start breaking down, for they rely on tracking and tracing
fresh cases. Instead, life in much of China is relatively normal.
Strictness for the greater good continues to enjoy unmistak
able public support. But Chinese leaders do face a risk whenever
public opinion suspects that overly harsh lockdowns actually
serve the interests of a minority, ie, officials eager to cover their
backs. There are signs of disquiet. Chengdu, for instance, recently
broadened its pandemic controls, testing 82,000 people whose
mobile telephones had spent ten minutes within 800 metres of a
suspected case. Other cities have started copying this approach.
But on November 8th two leading epidemiologists and a doctor in
Chengdu wrote an open letter warning pandemic officials that
such mass testing must be guided by science, and risks causing
panic. That officials keep talking about punishing rulebreakers is
a sign of at least some public fatigue. It also risks driving the weary
to hide from the authorities.The party calls pandemic control proof that it loves the people
To maintain support, strict controls must be seen to benefit every
one, though a minority will feel the most hardship. Foreigners in
China, yearning for borders to open, often suggest that the sight of
normality in the rest of the world will soon make Chinese citizens
restless. For now, state media keep such envy at bay by presenting
the West as a deathstalked hellhole. An online video promoted
this week by state media is filled with images of Donald Trump
when he was America’s president, and the chaos abroad of those
days. It calls American travellers “walking vectors of contagion”.
To date, zerocovid’s worst effects have been felt by luckless
minorities, from lockeddown residentsto those whose liveli
hoods depend on free movement within and outside China. Fear,
and the stigma endured by those who catch the virus, have en
sured compliance with orders. Harsh policies have bought China’s
leaders time, as they wait for potent vaccines and antiviral drugs
that might let them open up safely. Officials have arguably slowed
an exit by refusing toapprove foreign vaccines that are more effec
tive than China’s, in their eagerness to prove the superiority of
oneparty rule over Western democracy. Further mutationsofthe
virus may one day challenge China’s strategy. If theymakelock
downs more frequent, the ranks of the unlucky will grow.nChaguan
Harsh rules enjoy support, as long as a majority feels safe