China’s Zero COVID Dilemma

China’s commitment to “zero COVID” – which has the imprimatur of “core” leader Xi Jinping himself – has resulted in draconian lockdowns of entire cities, most famously Shanghai for two months in the spring of 2022. Since August, over 80 different cities have been placed under at least partial lockdowns. And with each lockdown comes new reports that locals can’t secure food, medication, and other basic necessities.

In the summer and early fall, hope was riding high in China that there would be a major shift in the country’s approach to COVID-19 following the 20th Party Congress. But as the congress grew closer, official pronouncements grew more, not less, empathic about the need to stay the course. The final nail in the coffin came with the Party Congress work report, where Xi not only praised China’s “unswerving insistence to dynamic zero” but insisted it had had “significant positive results for economic and social development.”

A spokesperson for the Party Congress expanded on that, insisting that China’s approach had overall benefited the economy and society by preventing infections: “Our epidemic prevention measures are the most economical and effective.” There was a stubborn resistance to even acknowledge the costs, which range from economic (closed factories, reduced consumption) to social (discontent and even protests).

The frustrated hope that “zero COVID” might be on its way out may have galvanized the protests that erupted in cities across China in late November.

On November 24, 10 people died when a fire broke out at an apartment building in Urumqi, Xinjiang, which was under a COVID-19 lockdown at the time. Chinese netizens immediately questioned whether the COVID-19 restrictions had prevented firefighters from reaching the blaze – or kept the residents from being able to evacuate. The Urumqi fire victims joined a growing list of deaths linked to China’s “zero COVID” policy: from a September 2022 bus crash in Guizhou that killed 27 people on their way to forced quarantine to a 3-year-old boy who died from carbon monoxide poisoning after neighborhood workers wouldn’t let his father leave their quarantined apartment building to seek medical attention.

The Urumqi fire, however, sparked collective protests in a way that no other incident had. In a dozen cities across China, from Shanghai and Beijing to Sichuan and Heilongjiang provinces, hundreds took to the streets. Many were college students, traditionally the activist core of Chinese protest movements since the early 20th century. Most worryingly for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), protesters’ grievances rapidly escalated from denouncing COVID-19 policies to calling for freedom of the press and democracy, and even demanding that the CCP cede power.

The protest movement is the largest on the mainland since the 1989 pro-democracy protests, although nowhere near it in scope. Yet the great irony is that the public anger against “zero COVID” came after the CCP took its first tentative steps toward reopening.

On November 10, Xi Jinping presided over a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) to hear a work report “on the prevention and control” of the COVID-19 epidemic and “to research deploying 20 measures to further optimize prevention and control work.”

The readout from the meeting published by Xinhua, China’s state news agency, started by emphasizing the necessity of zero COVID: the virus continues to mutate; the global pandemic situation is still severe; and China has both a large at-risk population and limited healthcare resources. The PSC warned that the epidemic situation was “severe” and could get worse.

“Necessary epidemic measures cannot be relaxed,” the readout proclaimed.

Still, the comments from the PSC seemed aware of the unwanted side effects of zero COVID. The readout repeatedly urged “dynamic” and “precise” measures to combat COVID-19, which is the CCP’s way of urging a more flexible and targeted lockdown structure without actually calling off lockdowns.

This line of thinking, though, is nothing new; the CCP began emphasizing “dynamic zero” in late 2021 (ironically, at the time some also saw the change in language as a sign of imminent reopening). Chinese officials have often called, as the PSC meeting did, for balancing COVID-19 prevention and economic development. But this time there was a concrete, albeit small, shift in policy accompanying the rhetoric.

The readout said the PSC had discussed 20 measures to “optimize” zero COVID “prevention and control.” On November 11, China’s State Council announced those measures, including a decrease in mandatory hotel quarantine for international arrivals (down from seven days to five days). And in a change likely to make a huge difference for Chinese people, a “close contact of a close contact” – for example the hapless soul who unknowingly entered a bar an hour after an infected person left – will no longer be required to leave their homes for central quarantine. Instead, they can isolate at home.

But even these changes came alongside official insistence that China is sticking to its “prevention and control” strategy. Even as the supposed “easing” was being rolled out, 5 million people were under lockdown in Guangzhou, and Beijing saw widespread closures of schools, shops, and restaurants amid rising case counts. “Optimizing” these measures is a far cry from giving up a zero COVID approach. Sure enough, restrictions were tightened across the country in November, as case counts continued to climb.

The explosive combination of hopeful signals combined with a return to heavy-handed lockdowns may have been what pushed public anger over the edge into full-blown protests, versus venting grievances online (as has been widely seen since Wuhan first locked down in early 2020).

In tweaking its COVID-19 policy, the CCP attempted to make use of a time-tested strategy: taking credit for the good aspects of a policy and foisting blame for the bad onto local governments. Any harsh impacts from zero COVID are, under this narrative, the result of overzealous and “unscientific” local leaders who are taking things too far. That was the PSC’s message when it stated that the party must “oppose and overcome formalism and bureaucracy, and correct ‘upping the ante’ and ‘one solution for all problems’ methods.”

Indeed, there have been numerous cases of neighborhood- or city-level officials taking zero COVID to a horrible extreme, with tragic consequences. But those officials aren’t acting in a vacuum. The real key to China’s zero COVID policy – or any policy, for that matter – is the incentive structure. Are local officials more likely to be punished for being overly zealous in their preventative measures or for allowing outbreaks to happen? The promotion of Li Qiang, the leader of Shanghai during its lockdown, to China’s number two, provides one clear signal.

Currently, local leaders have every reason to err on the side of “zero tolerance” (China’s original COVID-19 pandemic policy slogan) rather than “dynamic zero.” Until that incentive structure changes, clearly and undeniably – until, for example, we see punishments for the “arbitrary” lockdowns denounced by the new measures – zero COVID is here to stay.

And China’s protesters know it. The chants specifically targeting Xi Jinping demonstrate that the protesters, at least, realize the central leadership is ultimately responsible for local leaders’ actions.

Xi has made extremely clear that he doesn’t believe China can “open up” without overrunning its health system with COVID-19 cases. But the current protests prove that he can’t stay the zero COVID course without risking more and more social instability, including previously unthinkable calls for the CCP to step down.

As of this writing, it’s unclear what direction Xi will take China’s COVID-19 policies. But if we know one thing about the “core” leader, it’s that Xi generally responds to challenges by doubling down on his original course.