It is a level of courage I can scarcely quantify. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) runs a brutal, authoritarian regime. Freedom of expression is suppressed while dissent – whether online or on the streets – is swiftly censored and punished.
A place where there are cameras on every city street waiting to track, identify and sanction non-conformists. Where, if you manage to evade the authorities (or even if you don’t) there is the threat of action against your family.
A world in which power lies in one party and, increasingly, one man.
Where an estimated one million Uyghurs are trapped in concentration camps, in what the United Nations says may constitute crimes against humanity. In that dystopian but real-life context, when your chances of success are essentially nil, would you protest?
And yet, they are. In the most significant civil unrest since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, demonstrators in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities have clashed with police, in opposition to the country’s zero-covid strategy. Meanwhile, BBC journalist Ed Lawrence was “beaten and kicked” by police after being arrested while covering the protests. Number 10 has condemned the incident.
China posted record-high infections today, as its strategy of city-wide lockdowns and industrial out-of-town Covid quarantine centres continues to falter. For an understanding of what those are like, read this extraordinary piece by Thomas Hale, the FT’s Shanghai Correspondent, who spent 10 days in one such facility.
China is now approaching its fourth year of severe pandemic restrictions and is persisting with its zero-covid strategy, even as the rest of the world learns to live imperfectly with the virus. Levels of paranoia and censorship are so great that Chinese football fans are prevented from seeing close-ups of crowds in Qatar, lest they spot tens of thousands of maskless fans enjoying the football.
Why is the country persevering with this policy? China suffers from low vaccination rates among the elderly, a rickety healthcare system and a government, both local and central, that need not respond to swings in public opinion. But it’s not working.
The Chinese government now faces the invidious choice of instituting more brutal lockdowns or unleashing a further Covid surge. This would have grave consequences for public health, the global economy and, never forgetting, the brave Chinese women and men risking all that they have to speak out.
The calculation for the CCP is reasonably clear: it is eager to make the case that, while the Chinese people endured Covid restrictions for longer – unlike the decadent and uncaring west, which sacrificed its grandparents and care workers – it kept its people safe. That China doesn’t need western scientific help, not least mRNA vaccines. That its system is fundamentally better. That ‘stability’ and autocracy are the only way.
It may take a lot more censorship and further lockdowns to make that case. And that is likely to fuel ever more dissatisfaction.
Elsewhere in the paper, armed forces personnel in Britain could drive ambulances and stand in for frontline hospital roles under emergency plans to deal with possible industrial action in the NHS. Officials are said to be drawing up plans to use the military as paramedics and ambulance drivers consider joining nurses on the picket line in the coming months.
In the comment pages, Philip Collins says Tory quitters are a stark verdict on the last 12 years – and Rishi Sunak. While resident Grinch Melanie McDonagh brings bad tidings to those celebrating Christmas too soon.
And finally, this is delightful. Lucy Cavendish reveals how her dog helps her to get dates.
