Around noon last Tuesday, Yu Wenming, an 82-year-old man from Shanghai, called his local residential committee for help. “I’ve finished my medication. I have nothing to eat either. I feel terrible,” Yu, who had tested positive for Covid, told party secretary Zhang Zhen.
Zhang listened patiently and said he had already referred the case to his superiors and there was nothing he could do. “Then you mean I should just wait here until I die?” Yu asked. Zhang responded with an angry tirade, complaining that he too was completely powerless in this situation: “I’m worried too. I’m angry too… But there’s nothing we can do… I don’t know what to do either.”
Zhang revealed that calls for help had increased over the past few days, but that his superiors were not paying attention. “Maybe one day I’ll quit if I can’t take it. Will that day come soon?”
Economically, it is estimated that the equivalent of 40% of China’s gross domestic product is in some form of lockdown. In Shanghai — a metropolis known for its hustle and bustle and sometimes dubbed the “Paris of the East” — a fortnight in detention has left its 25 million residents feeling hopeless and despair.
Food shortages have forced some residents to resort to bartering. A flurry of criticism of the authorities’ response to the crisis has left the normally efficient internet censors unable to keep up.
Online, many residents question not only the handling of the outbreak, but also Beijing’s official narrative that emphasizes the common good. Footage of local protests was uploaded to Chinese social media. They were removed by censorship but have reappeared on western platforms like Twitter and Facebook – both blocked in China.
“Every day there are incidents that ruin the bottom line,” wrote a “ordinary Shanghai resident” in a widely shared Weibo article last week titled “Shanghai’s patience has reached the limit.”
But despite growing dissatisfaction, there is little evidence that the authorities will change course. Disturbing stories of exhausted officials have been widely read online in recent days, including one about a 55-year-old local health official, Qian Wenxiong, who is said to have taken his own life in his office because of the pressure he was under. Authorities confirmed he died on Thursday and police did not deny the alleged cause.
A volunteer spoke to residents of an apartment block in Shanghai last week. Photo: Chen Jianli/APHu Xijin, the former editor of the state tabloid Global Times, said in an op-ed that Qian’s death has reinforced the impression that Shanghai’s fight against Covid has “overwhelmed” officials. But he insisted that despite the tragedy, Shanghai “must achieve a Covid clearance” for the country’s good.
His words have been echoed by China’s top leaders in recent days. On Wednesday, President Xi Jinping told his officials, “It is necessary to overcome crippling thoughts, war weariness … and slack mentality.” On Friday, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan reiterated the government’s unwavering commitment to “zero Covid”.
But tensions between hard-line authorities and grassroots protests over food shortages have exposed a dilemma for Beijing, according to Prof Jane Duckett, a longtime supporter of Shanghai politics and society at the University of Glasgow.
“The food crisis in Shanghai has been a key issue that has taken Shanghai residents by surprise and prompted them to question the anti-Covid strategy,” she said. “The problem is that without better logistics of getting supplies of food and other essentials, there is pressure to ease restrictions, but easing is likely to lead to the spread of the virus – and scenes like Hong Kong’s. Protest and instability seem inevitable either way.”
Experts say that despite growing calls outside the country for China to abandon its Covid policy, Beijing’s patchy record of vaccinating its vulnerable population – particularly those over 60 – would pose an even greater threat to its failing health system.
As of April 5, more than 92 million Chinese citizens aged 65 and over had not received three doses of the vaccine, putting them at greater risk of developing severe symptoms or dying from the virus. Of even greater concern, 20.2 million people aged 80 and over were also not fully vaccinated.
Supplies are delivered at a site in town. Photo: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty ImagesThese realities, coupled with the use of a comparatively less effective home-made vaccine, have made China’s future policy choices even more constrained.
“The Chinese leadership has been cornered,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow at the New York-based think tank Council on Foreign Relations. “But instead of asking the entire population – young and old – to stay at home at the same time, Beijing should focus on convincing its seniors to get three doses of vaccine and provide them with the antiviral pills first. They should also promptly approve BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine for nationwide rollout.”
But for China’s leaders, insisting on zero Covid is also about demonstrating the superiority of China’s political system, Duckett believes.
Last week, Xi once again praised the policy at an event celebrating the Winter Olympics, despite reports of food shortages in one of the country’s main financial hubs. “As some foreign athletes have said, if there is a gold medal for pandemic response, China deserves it,” Xi said, according to the Xinhua News Agency.
What happened in Shanghai and elsewhere in the country will also have political ramifications ahead of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party later this year, according to Victor Shih, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the University of California, San Diego.
“The party normally wishes for a smooth economic and political environment for Congress, but Covid and the different responses of Chinese cities to it will create a very challenging environment for the party,” he said.
The residents of Shanghai, who have a reputation for being politically disinterested, now have to get through this time. Towards the end of his conversation on Tuesday, Yu Zhang, the local party secretary, asked a question: “Is it really like this in our country?”
“I don’t know how Shanghai ended up like this,” Zhang said. He sighed and ended the conversation. “I’m sorry Mr. Yu… Goodbye.”
A recording of their exchange soon went viral on WeChat before censorship caught up with them and removed them. On Thursday, state media said Yu was taken to a hospital.