Tag: lockdown

View | Covid Protest: Is this China’s Arab Spring Moment!

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Presenting his eulogistic report card at the recently held  20^th Communist Party Congress (CPC), President Xi Jinping claimed his ‘Zero Covid’ policy as a grand success as he was crowned for the 3^rd time . But the same policy has come to bite him. An average Chinese citizen is usually prone to following the diktat of the supreme leader and the Party rather meekly, and unlike democracies significant opposition is not overtly expressed.

Occasional small protests have been happening on many occasions on various issues that are allowed to be throttled out in a controlled manner but the Tiananmen square of 1989 and the democracy movement and year-long protests in Hong Kong and elsewhere remain etched as the red lines for the establishment. But extensive and draconian Covid lockdowns for prolonged periods in different parts of the country, pursuant to ‘Zero Covid’ policy of the Government, have raised the levels of frustration and crossed their limits of tolerance.

Also Read: After protests, Chinese official says lockdowns should be removed as swiftly as they are imposed

Hence, China is witnessing unprecedented outpour of anger against the Emperor and The Party. China has been accused of complicity in the origins and spread of the Covid-19 pandemic across frontiers from the very beginning. It had claimed to have controlled within by enforcing lockdowns and zero movement policy with daily testing etc.  Initial success led them to make the people believe that the so called ‘Chinese model’ was unique and superior and had worked well to contain the pandemic, as the West was not able to effectively deal with the virus.

Also Read: China COVID protest: Xi Jinping can’t blame the protesters — the world will be watching

But that was not so in reality as even now the pandemic and the threats continue to dog the ordinary citizen in China with similar prescriptions of ‘complete lockdown and containment’ while the rest of the world is learning to live with it.

The extent of vaccination and the very efficacy of the Chinese vaccines were also questioned. Elderly have not yet been vaccinated fully as per various reports.  Media clamp downs have kept the lid for far too long as externally China indulged in taking on the world through its ‘Wolf Warrior Diplomacy’ via a pliable WHO, leave aside the economic crisis and supply and value chain disruptions that ensued due to complete lockdowns of Shanghai and other major economic and industrial hubs.

It was reported that iPhone may not be able to deliver large quantities due to disruptions. Zero Covid growth is unlikely to be positive. China’s economic stress and structural fault lines are causing a distress at the grass-root level as they have created disruption in global value and supply chains let alone China’s GDP dipping below 3 percent. All these have compounded impact on the public mood and expectations and ability of the regime to deliver.

Also Read: Here are the Indian companies which have been impacted by protests in China

Normally, a spark for any major conflagration and public outcry is a small incident. The last three days have found one such anchor in the Urumqi apartment fire incident when 10 people, who could not escape due to locked premises, died. The suppressed anger and despair of the people acquired a voice and a salience as they confronted the police forces by shouting ‘Down with CPC and Down with Xi Jinping’ as they pressed for ending the lockdowns.

Situation is becoming a crisis to reckon with for the CPC and Xi Jinping even as they have decided to slightly ease the restrictions. It is unlikely that the totalitarian regime would retract from its ‘Zero Covid’ policy, at least formally, under pressure or protests lest it be seen losing by the other side. This Xi can not afford just six weeks into his supposedly epoch-making third tenure. 

President Xi has a Hobson’s choice and that is to quell the riots and break the protests which possibly they will do since at the moment these are spontaneous and do not seem to have any acclaimed leadership but overtime that is the way it will emerge. Hence during the early weeks a  carrot and stick policy which  the Party and the Leader are likely to follow. The problem is also that China is reporting a strong incidence of new covid cases with over 40000 and mathematical models suggest that if the lockdowns are lifted it could lead to unprecedented mayhem in Covid spread and casualties for which also the regime will be held responsible. 

At this stage it does not appear that the situation is going out of hand since repression will be unleashed, through its extensive mass surveillance and digital tracking, on the errant by the regime but it may simultaneously try to find a way of alleviating the citizens’ distress and despair without giving in to their demands. Moreover, the economic fall out of the covid impact and extremist policies has already done lot of harm to the Chinese economy and markets.

Hence, its capacity to withstand and endure continued pressure with clear political overtones is doubtful and demands a course correction for the domestic and international wellbeing. Whether, these fast spreading, although still spontaneous and sporadic, protests will ironically prove to be the sui generis ‘Arab Spring’ moment for China and President Xi Jinping , remains to be seen. 

—Anil Trigunayat is a former Indian Ambassador and international commentator. He is a distinguished Fellow at Vivekananda International Foundation. The views are personal.

Read his previous articles here 

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China’s COVID crackdown hits economic growth

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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China’s economy has slowed dramatically for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with experts now predicting that the country will miss its annual growth target of 5.5 percent.

The world’s manufacturing engine has posted its lowest growth in 30 years as a result of premier Xi Jinping’s zero COVID policy.

Under this policy, Beijing has enacted snap lockdowns and restrictions on people’s mobility. As of July 15, there were still 31 cities under full or partial lockdowns including regions which account for 17.5 percent of the country’s economic activity.

Retail sales grew 2.7 percent while industrial output grew 3.8 percent compared to last year’s figures. This is down from the previous month and far short of analysts’ forecasts.

Steadily rising youth unemployment is another wrench in China’s economy, with new graduates flooding in already saturated job market according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics. This comes despite a marginal improvement in nationwide unemployment rates.

These lacklustre results come after the world’s second-biggest economy barely avoided contraction in the second quarter.

In an effort to avoid a slowdown, the country’s central bank slashed interest rates following this data. However experts believe that a devastating heat wave and power outages could weigh heavily on China’s economy going forward.

Read Here: China issues first national drought alert, battles to save crops

So how will this impact the globe’s supply chain, and how much can the government deal with at this juncture? To discuss this, CNBC-TV18 spoke to Andrew KP Leung, Independent China Strategist; Ananth Krishnan, China Correspondent for The Hindu and Shaun Rein, MD of CMR.

Rein said, “There are some serious warning signs that investors need to look at, because it is easily fixed but I don’t think the government wants to easily fix it. So one party of the heatwave, it has been incredibly hot in Shanghai in the last few months, 41 degrees, so a lot of people don’t want to go outside shopping. The biggest problem though are the COVID policies. They are spreading fear and lack of confidence in the Chinese consumer population and in business.”

He spoke about the time after the Shanghai lockdown when he went on a trip for seven weeks and he travelled around Xinjiang and Hunan. “Almost every day, I had to get a COVID test, which took between one and two hours out of my day, which was a lack of productivity. So until you start to see an easing of the COVID policies, which I don’t think is going to happen anytime soon the economy is going to be in for a rough time,” he said.

Krishnan said that he doesn’t see any steps that would suggest a move away from the dynamic zero COVID. “Here in Beijing, we are still forced to take tests every 72 hours without which you don’t get access to most places. You don’t see any of the signs that would suggest an exit strategy such as a focus on a booster vaccination campaign, or messaging the public saying that COVID is not a life-threatening illness anymore for vaccinated. These are the kinds of messages you don’t hear in China, and people are still afraid of getting COVID. So you don’t see any of the signs that would suggest to move away from zero COVID,” he said.

Krishnan said that until there is a concerted effort, an exit strategy, which isn’t at the moment, they are going to continue with this even though it is causing a lot of economic pain.

Watch video for more.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Supply issues halts Tesla production in Shanghai while Elon Musk is busy on Twitter

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Tesla Inc halted production at its Shanghai plant on Monday due to issues with supplies, a media report said.

The suspension comes just three weeks after the US automaker partially resumed production at the Shanghai plant on April 19 following a 22-day closure caused by the city’s COVID-19 lockdown, reflecting the complexity and uncertainties of keeping manufacturing going as China battles the coronavirus.

It is unclear when the supply issues can be resolved and when Tesla can resume production, the report quoted people, who declined to be identified as the matter is private. Shanghai is now in its sixth week of lockdown.

Among Tesla suppliers facing issues is wire harness maker Aptiv which had to stop shipping supplies from a plant that supplies Tesla and General Motors after infections were found among its employees, Reuters reported
Tesla did not immediately respond to a query for comment.

The company was aiming to increase output at its Shanghai plant to 2,600 cars a day from May 16, Reuters reported previously, as it seeks to restore production to levels before the lockdown.

The disruption to Tesla’s Shanghai plant has been one of the highest profile consequences of China’s measures to control its biggest COVID-19 outbreak, which has also crimped consumption, including vehicle sales.

China’s auto association said last week it estimated auto sales in China dropped 48 percent in April as zero-COVID lockdowns shut factories, limited traffic to showrooms, and put the brakes on spending.

Shanghai authorities have tightened a city-wide lockdown imposed more than a month ago on the commercial hub with a population of 25 million, a move that could extend curbs on movement through the month.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Shanghai residents turn to NFTs to record COVID lockdown, combat censorship

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Shanghai residents are turning to the blockchain to preserve memories of the city’s month-long COVID-19 lockdown, minting videos, photos and artworks capturing their ordeal as non-fungible tokens to ensure they can be shared and avoid deletion.

Unable to leave their homes for weeks at a time, many of the city’s 25 million residents have been unleashing their frustrations online, venting about draconian lockdown curbs and difficulties procuring food, and sharing stories of hardship, such as patients unable to get medical treatment.

That has intensified the cat-and-mouse game with Chinese censors, which have vowed to step up policing of the internet and group chats to prevent what they describe as rumours and efforts to stoke discord over seething public frustration with the lockdown.

While some people have defiantly continued reposting such content, others are turning to NFT marketplaces like the world’s largest, OpenSea, where users can mint content and buy or sell it using cryptocurrencies, attracted in part by the fact that data recorded on the blockchain is unerasable.

The height of Shanghai’s lockdown minting moment is rooted in April 22, when netizens battled censors overnight to share a six-minute video entitled “The Voice of April”, a montage of voices recorded over the course of the Shanghai outbreak.

As of Monday, 786 different items related to the video can be found on OpenSea, alongside hundreds of other NFTs related to the lockdown in Shanghai.

On April 23, a Chinese Twitter user with the handle imFong said in a widely retweeted post, “I have minted the — Voice of April — video into an NFT and have frozen its metadata. This video will exist forever on the IPFS,” referring to the interplanetary file system, a type of distributed network.

Like most major foreign social media and news platforms, Twitter is blocked in China, although residents can access it using VPNs.

A Shanghai-based programmer told Reuters that he was among those in the city who viewed their effort to keep the video alive as part of a “people’s rebellion”.

He has himself minted an NFT based on a screenshot of Shanghai’s COVID lockdown map, showing how most of the city has been sealed off from the outside world.

“Being stuck at home because of the outbreak leaves me a lot of time,” he said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Other Shanghai content available on OpenSea as NFTs for sale includes Weibo posts containing complaints about the curbs, images from inside quarantine centres, and works of art inspired by life under lockdown.

Simon Fong, a 49-year-old freelance designer from Malaysia who has been living in Shanghai for nine years, began creating satirical illustrations on life under lockdown in the style of Mao-era propaganda posters.

He started minting them into NFTs, having dabbled in the market since late last year, and has now managed to sell nine of his works for an average price of 0.1 ether ($290).

His pieces include scenes dramatising PCR testing, as well as residents’ demands for government rations.

“I chose the Mao-era propaganda style for these pieces because some people are saying that the lockdown situation is taking Shanghai backward,” Fong said.

While China has banned cryptocurrency trading, it sees the blockchain as a promising technology and NFTs have been gaining traction in the country, embraced by state media outlets and even tech companies including Ant Group and Tencent Holdings.

The protracted lockdown in Shanghai, China’s financial hub, is part of Beijing’s controversial zero-COVID strategy, a policy which has growing risks to its economy.

The COVID outbreak in Shanghai, which began in March, has been China’s worst since the early months of the pandemic in 2020. Hundreds of thousands have been infected in the city.

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

COVID-hit Beijing keeps up guard to avert Shanghai-like misery

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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China’s capital Beijing closed some public spaces and stepped up checks on others on Thursday, as most of the city’s 22 million residents embarked on more COVID-19 mass testing aimed at averting a Shanghai-like lockdown.

As Beijing rolled out three rounds of mass testing this week across a number of districts, it locked down a number of residential compounds, office blocks and a university after infections were found while shutting some schools, entertainment venues and tourist sites.

Universal Studios in Beijing announced late on Wednesday it would require visitors to show negative test results before they could enter the theme park, starting on Friday.

Across Beijing, positive cases were found among the nearly 20 million samples acquired in the first round of mass testing, but numbers remained small. The city on Thursday reported 50 new infections for April 27, up from 34 a day earlier.

Since April 22, Beijing has found over 160 cases, more than half in Chaoyang, the city’s most populous district known for its nightlife, malls and embassies.

Despite the low caseload, Beijing remained on edge.

When the outbreak in Shanghai began, new infections were under 100 a day between March 1-10 before doubling and then surging to more than 700 by March 20.

So far, Beijing has tried to avoid disrupting its economy, allowing residents to go to work even as they get tested, unless infections are found and localised lockdowns are required.

“We’ll have to stay at the dormitory first, then come back to work after the lockdown is lifted,” said a migrant worker surnamed Wu, who arrived in Beijing on Wednesday after a 10-hour train journey with a friend.

The two were to begin work in a canteen of the Beijing University of Technology, but that did not happen after residential compounds next to the university went into a lockdown.

After a long discussion with staff at the university, they were told to go stay at a dormitory currently under lockdown.

“We can cook in the dormitory, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time until the lockdown is lifted,” said Wu.

“I won’t ask for money if I don’t work.”

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow