Zero Covid, Many Problems
As China continues its strict Zero Covid crusade, citizens have reached their breaking point; other nations are looking elsewhere for reliable goods production.
At the onset of the Covid 19 pandemic, China, the origin point of the crisis, took swift action. Hoarding and increasing production of PPE, including masks and face shields, and investing in drones and electronic security measures to enforce quarantines. The government built housing accommodations (seemingly overnight) to separate those with Covid from the rest of the population. At the same time, countries around the world dismissed Covid, calling it a hoax or a “mild cold.” These countries paid the price with late lockdowns after thousands of citizens succumbed to the disease. Countries like Brazil and the United States were caught flatfooted as emergency services were immediately overwhelmed. Their usual strong supply chains were halted, creating shortages that made the Covid situation even direr.
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) decision to take Covid seriously saved thousands of lives, as demonstrated by their extremely low amount of deaths even when compared to countries with far smaller populations. Unfortunately, once reasonable measures and mindsets around Covid have developed into paranoia on behalf of the CCP. While most of the world has now moved on, accepting Covid as a regular part of life that is here to stay, China has held on to its desire for “Zero Covid.” The Zero Covid strategy is one of control and maximum suppression. It involves using public health measures like contract tracing, mass testing, border quarantines, lockdowns, and mitigation software to stop community transmissions as soon as they are detected. The ultimate goal is to achieve zero new infections and then resume normal economic and social activities.
Under the Zero Covid Strategy, China is still strictly enforcing a series of measures, including:
Local authorities must impose strict lockdowns, even if only a handful of Covid cases are found;
Mass testing is carried out in places where cases have been reported;
People with Covid are isolated at home or placed under quarantine at government facilities;
Businesses and schools are closed in lockdown areas;
Shops must also close, except for those selling food;
Lockdowns last until no new infections are reported.
These types of restrictions should be familiar, as many of these were carried out in some form by every country in the world from 2020-2021. The difference is the degree to which China enforces these measures and the government’s unwillingness to accept that Covid is here to stay. While citizens in Europe and the US now enjoy a lifestyle very close, if not identical, to the “pre-Covid” era, Chinese citizens are still operating as the world did during early 2020, struggling against on and off lockdowns, quarantining at home, strict mask uses, closed borders, etc. This should not come as a surprise; the Covid pandemic enabled authoritarian states like China to monitor and control their citizens in ways never before seen under the guise of Covid prevention. The CCP, led by Xi Jinping, does not want to roll back the many tools of control that they have worked hard to establish during Covid. Take a look at the graph below, developed by the University of Oxford, that highlights even three years into the pandemic, China’s restrictive lockdowns remain at steady levels.
Zero Covid has turned into a political and economic disaster for the Chinese government. China’s economy has gone from the clear frontrunner in global production trust to shaky footing. Chinese people, fed up with constant lockdowns, job/school closings, and movement restrictions have taken to open protests in the streets. Defying the Chinese government is extremely dangerous; the willingness of the people’s brazen display of displeasure reveals how much public opinion has soured on Zero Covid, and the country’s desperation to achieve some sort of pre-covid normal.
Recently, Apple’s largest iPhone factory, the Zhengzhou factory, which accounts for more than 70% of Apple’s global iPhone production, was totally shut down over protests related to China’s Zero Covid policies. This comes after the plant was operating at reduced capacity last month due to Covid cases among the workers. Apple stock has lost value due to the ongoing problems at the factory, and has warned shipments of the iPhone 14 will be lower than previously expected. The “on/off” nature of China’s production has created skepticism in the international community regarding China’s reliability as a business partner. Li Daokui, Mansfield professor of economics at China’s Tsinghua University, had the following to say on Zero Covid’s impact:
“People used to think that China is the most solid, the most secure, most stable supply source. Now they are thinking to rebuild their own supply backup chains in their own countries or regions. So that is the situation now.”
As detailed in this CNBC article, the “on/off” economy is creating a push for supply chain diversification out of China.
The double threat of civil unrest and a worsening economic situation demonstrates what needs to be done: relax Covid restrictions and rebuild trust in China’s capacity to reliably produce the goods that the world needs. Unfortunately for authoritarian states, one of their many weaknesses is the inability to learn from mistakes. Take democracies around the world, which have responded to citizens’ outrage over lasting restrictions into the early months of 2021 as a sign to loosen restrictions. While ending lockdowns and mask mandates has increased Covid cases, it has also increased economic activity, the mood of the populations, and confidence in the future. This came as a reaction to the souring spirit of lockdowns and other measures, as Covid restrictions significantly impacted people’s lives and simultaneously resisted all restrictions that were supposed to help lower cases. Does anyone remember “two weeks to stop the spread?” Politicians feared the electoral costs of continuing to enforce lockdowns and mask mandates into mid-2021 and backed off the issue.
When decisions are made by one or a handful of people for an entire nation, there are no checks and balances to determine whether policies are good or bad. Xi Jinping’s unwillingness to back off Zero Covid would not be a problem if the people of China, or any other institution, could provide a meaningful check on the obviously harmful policies that are now creating more problems than they are solving. It is likely that, eventually, these extremely restrictive measures will be relaxed. Still, the consequences of holding on to the Zero Covid dream have already been realized and will continue to worsen the longer nothing is done.
TLDR China’s dedication to its “Zero Covid” strategy is creating more problems than solutions. When will the CCP relent?