April was reportedly a cruel month for Shanghai residents.
As an outbreak of COVID-19 caused by Omicron swept through China’s largest city, millions of people were confined to their homes.
In an eerie echo of the 2020 lockdown of downtown Wuhan after the virus first emerged, desperate cries for help went unheeded or were stifled as authorities pledged to eradicate the virus under China’s so-called “zero-COVID.” Strategy.
But just as people in Wuhan took to social media to express their anger and dismay at the outbreak and the authorities’ harsh response, Shanghai residents have questioned an approach that has disrupted food supplies, separated families and medical resources charged.
As much of the rest of the world tries to live with the virus, people in Shanghai have used diaries, videos, audio files, WeChat notes and Weibo posts to vent their frustration and question whether the endless confinement makes any sense .
But in a country where public discourse and social media are tightly controlled, the Chinese government soon decided enough was enough, sparking a game of cat-and-mouse between censorship and the city’s restlessly creative citizens , reminiscent of the government’s earlier struggle to control the information overload from Wuhan.
Much of the information removed by the censors spoke of the desperation in Shanghai, including many cries for help from citizens: dialysis patients begging to be admitted to hospitals, families running out of food and a cancer patient returning from chemotherapy, the however entry was denied to her apartment due to the lockdown.
Health workers wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) are among the few people on the streets of Shanghai, which has been under a strict lockdown for most of the month [Hector Retamal/AFP]
One post, which was quickly removed, offered an insight into the dangers faced by people with other illnesses who died because their COVID-19 test did not come back negative and were denied hospital admission.
In another article entitled “Ask for Help,” a netizen urging the government to pay more attention to food supplies wrote: “In a city of 25 million people, even if the basic needs of 99% of them were met, there would be there are still some 250,000 people whose needs fell through the cracks.” The next day it was gone from the internet.
A sense of desperation and anger set in as censors frantically continued to delete posts and articles they feared posed a threat to the “stability” so prized by the ruling Communist Party.
“The primary goal of CCP censorship is to prevent large-scale collective action,” said Zachary Steinert-Threlkeld, a UCLA professor who studies protest movements and online censorship. “Censorship is counterproductive when you think the aim is to prevent the spread of discontent about the lockdown, but it is productive when it prevents disgruntled individuals from coordinating action outside their homes.”
‘Stand up’
In an attempt to trick the authorities, some tried to republish deleted articles or comments using various methods, e.g. B. by uploading a mirror image of the original photos or translating articles into English to spread bold messages on social media.
“Rise, those who will not be slaves” — the opening line of China’s national anthem — suddenly became a phrase too bold to see on social media, making the Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, the Round before the topic was wiped.
“I want to say to those in charge of censorship: the regime you support sucks, the work you do sucks, the work you do is despised by everyone, every post you make delete, it’s a bullet you’re shooting yourself, you’re an accomplice, and you’re not innocent,” one user wrote on Weibo, and the post soon went viral, a testament to the growing anger in Shanghai.
“It just felt like Wuhan again, and I’m still having trouble understanding why censors are deleting posts that were basically just people asking for help,” said Billy, a Shanghai resident who asked for a to use a pseudonym to Al Jazeera. “None of this makes sense.”
But experts say it makes sense for the Chinese government, which aims to prevent the emergence of any sort of mass movement that could potentially threaten its rule.
“It’s happened many times: there’s a public uproar and the censorship steps in to try to erase the criticism, and then people get angry at the censorship,” said Wang Yaqiu, senior China researcher at Human Rights Watch. opposite Al Jazeera. “But if you look at history, none of those public uprisings have turned into substantive protests.
“Right now, people are angry, but over time, as censorship tightens, the government could tone down the uproar,” she added.
Fueled by their frustration at the city’s authorities’ apparent failure to maintain food supplies and the government’s commitment to “zero COVID,” Shanghai residents have proved unusually vocal.
“Shanghaiers need to recognize that other countries have taken looser approaches to COVID, particularly in 2022, and likely feel that the CCP has less harsh policy options available,” Steinert-Threlkeld added.
Voices of April
Shanghai is also the most international city in China, home to some of the country’s most educated people, as well as a large population of foreigners and an army of social media influencers.
“These people are more inclined to make themselves heard, and they have the means to do so,” Wang said.
Spots of infection are now being discovered in Beijing as the Omicron variant tests the Chinese government’s “zero-COVID” policy [Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo]
Censorship peaked on April 22, when a video titled “Voices of April” surfaced on Chinese social media.
Voices of April, a collection of audio recordings played against the backdrop of a black-and-white aerial view of an empty Shanghai, chronicled the ordeal the city was going through in about six minutes, capturing the raw emotions of life that once was was in lockdown – busy city.
“Give us supplies,” call the locked-in residents from their windows.
“Can I have some antipyretics, please?” My child has a high fever, but the hospitals aren’t giving us any fever reducers,” another woman was heard knocking from door to door.
“The virus will not kill us, but hunger will kill us,” says one man.
“What if there’s a fire? What are we doing?” yells another, audibly annoyed at the fences that have been put up around his neighborhood property with the apparent aim of not letting anyone in or out.
“I’m really sorry, sir. I’ve called all sorts of numbers and I can’t do anything. I’m sorry,” a local official sighed while speaking to a resident who was complaining about the lockdown.
The heartbreaking video was soon deleted from the internet in China, although it continued to circulate on Twitter and Instagram – two platforms blocked in mainland China.
For an extended period of time, nearly all articles and posts shared on the WeChat Moments feed, the approximate equivalent of the Facebook feed, were tagged “invisible” because they “broke rules.”
“Voices of April” is a video with edited audio snippets showing the reality of a Covid-stricken Shanghai, where residents struggle with feelings of powerlessness. The video leaked to every corner of WeChat, but it was gone not long after. Read: https://t.co/uqHFFC6X6S pic.twitter.com/2z2NTAASYw
– What’s On Weibo (@WhatsOnWeibo) April 22, 2022
As April drew to a close, more than 12 million people in Shanghai were told on Friday that they could leave their homes — subject to certain conditions. However, more than five million remain in strict lockdown and there is little evidence that the much-vaunted “normal life” that the Chinese government has long boasted of was possible because of its “zero-COVID” strategy.
“You should consider yourself lucky to be living in China during the pandemic,” Zhao Lijian, the foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters during a news conference late last year as the rest of the world battled rising cases.
Amid the outbreak in Shanghai and the emergence of small clusters of infections in Beijing, many Chinese residents are no longer feeling so lucky.
When authorities in Beijing announced mass testing, lockdown residents of Shanghai had a warning for people in the capital.
“Now please stock up your fridge, get out of Beijing now if you can, and definitely don’t believe everything the government is telling you,” Ding, a Shanghai resident, wrote on her WeChat shortly after the campaign was announced .