TO Beijingin the week between April 18 and April 24, the sales volume of refrigerators increased by 178% yearly. This is reported by the magazine Caijing. In some stores the increase was 400% and the chest freezers are joined by other “refreshing” products such as: hair conditioner, so much so that the large producers had to transport to the capital part of the stock destined for other provinces. The Pekingese seem to be preparing for a leisurely one Spring-Summer indoors closed.
In fact, the policy of lockdown because the new wave of the pandemic is different from place to place. As the national policy of dynamic zeroing has been repeated many times, its application varies greatly. For example, if a shanghai We went with a heavy hand and on April 28th we celebrate a month of general lockdown (even more for some), in Beijing we try to calibrate the intervention and only few residential communities are provided for the time being in isolationwhile in some counties schools have switched toonline teaching: The first Omicron cases on April 22 forced the decision to conduct three rounds of testing by April 30 for the entire population. The first round brought encouraging results, just over a dozen infections. On Thursday the 28th, Beijing will explain everything 164 positives since new outbreak began, nothing compared to the thousands recorded every day in Shanghai. Why?
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It is widely believed that since the pandemic began, Beijing and shanghai We have adopted different styles in the “popular struggle” against the coronavirus (official definition). In the capital, the imperial city and hyper-controlled model city, the “P” (political) factor came to the fore excess of controlsalso thanks to the last one Winter Olympics where everything should be running smoothly. For example, the actions of Fourty precautionary for those arriving from abroad who had to go to Beijing, they have been since last year much more rigid compared to those reserved for those who went to Shanghai: three weeks of solitary confinement in a hotel room (and not in Beijing) plus test with the request not to go to crowded places, as opposed to two weeks in the hotel plus gentle quarantine in the economic and financial metropolis.
In addition, Beijing has always had the power to impose gods on other municipalities and provinces additional controls to all those who are just before the capital: filter at the exit and not only at the entrance. Eventually, with an ever-changing anthology of administrative actions, the return to metropolitan territory was accomplished for those who had left multiple complicated and not sure: if i go out, can i come back? Do I have to do a quarantine? Do my children have to stay at home with me and cannot go to school? Vagueness creates insecurity and makes you want to walk around too much.
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These days of restlessness The city government is growing among the Pekingese, who rush to buy groceries and fridges, trying to communicate how willing and efficient it is (implies: not like Shanghai’s). And here is a flier released to the public announcing that they took place on April 27th 19.81 million tests “In an orderly manner”; All supermarket chains have been asked to do so triple stocks and wholesale markets increased by8.3% their availability of fruits and vegetables; 17 psychological support hotlines have been set up and WeChat offers a mini-program for mental health self-assessments. Psyche Food Test: Everything That Went Wrong in Shanghai.
Until a few months ago Shanghai’s moderate laissez-faire was celebrated, a cosmopolitan and “smart” city compared to the austerely walled city of Beijing. Today, many of those who spent a month locked in their homes or, worse, in Shanghai’s quarantine centers are wondering if it couldn’t have been better Beijing management. Whatever the answer, it seems that the Chinese authorities have already made their choice: since the Anti-Covid Plenipotentiary Sun Chunlan – Deputy Prime Minister and member of the Politburo – was sent from Beijing to Shanghai to put things in order, the local authorities were de facto de-authorized and the fight against the virus is part of the hard and pure Dongtai-Qingling scheme (dynamic zeroing), indeed accentuated because too much time had been lost in the perspective of Chinese power.
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But sinceDespair the shanghaiesis inmate is now noticeable and visibly, in the last few days uncensored articles and videos are appearing on the net (or censored with a guilty delay), which together tend to tend to Discredit inefficiency with which the dynamic zeroing policy in Shanghai was applied more than to the policy itself. They are usually items that emanate from an urban legend that has spread among disgruntled people to take what is compatible and cleanse it of what is incompatible. For example, there was a rumor that i collective tampons and repeated in shared apartments favoring the spread of the virus and that nucleic acid testing companies most likely benefited from a widening outbreak; and here comes the article, acknowledging some inefficiency in managing the tests but suggesting authorities have everything on their minds and are taking action. Zhang Wenhongthe Shanghai doctor, who says “bread to bread,” and who had been silenced for months last year for supporting a relaxation of lockdown measures, also reappeared via video to acknowledge and acknowledge all the system’s inefficiencies report what people experience on their skin: the difficulty of finding food, medicines, the health system that cannot cure seriously ill people. This denunciation translates into the other cornerstone of current propaganda: to be vaccinated. The invitation, almost an order, is aimed primarily at older people. Will it work? It is not known, for the moment it is clear, that the narrative of a “happy island” China, given the massacres that Covid has reaped elsewhere, is in a serious crisis.
While daily infections in Shanghai appear to be falling, it is finally starting Chasing the culprit, identifying real managers and ready-made scapegoats. This should definitely include the local party secretary, Li Qiang, which until a few months ago, like many of its predecessors, was destined to rise to the top of power and which is now likely to disappear from the scene. In fact, it’s only a few months away twentieth congress of the Communist Party, the most important political event in a decade, expected to take place on an unspecified date in the fall. There will be a major leadership reshuffle on that occasion and that is expected Xi JinpingParty Secretary and President of the Republic, receives a third term Without precedents. there pandemic management Considered a fundamental parameter in the balance sheet of Xi’s first ten years and the party he leads, the Shanghai affair has already dealt a severe blow to his image, a similar situation in Beijing would be even more so.
Efforts are now being made to contain the economic and social consequences of the paralysis in Shanghai and the restrictions throughout China. That IMF recently lowered its forecasts for Chinese GDP this year over from 4.8 to 4.4%, well below the 5.5 growth target set by Beijing in early March. However, the Department of Human Resources and Social Security has just announced that the Unemployment rate remained at 5.5% in the first quarter (in the forecasts) and that 2.85 million new jobs were created in urban areas, which is 26 percent of the target set by the Chinese government for the year-end. On Tuesday the 26th, Xí Jìnping pledged to increase spending on infrastructure, calling it “the basis for economic and social development.” According to Bloomberg, the planned investment this year for the key works of local governments is at least 14.8 trillion yuan (over 2 trillion euros). The appeal to infrastructure it’s both a constant in China’s economic policy and a must-have choice amid real estate woes, sluggish domestic consumption and global supply chain disruption.