There have already been plans to dismantle the strict zero policy. However, there have been different interpretations of how it would go, according to Frédéric Cho who is an independent China advisor and vice chairman of the Sweden-China Trade Council.
Therefore, he believes that the widespread protests have definitely accelerated the process.
“You still have to interpret the health authorities’ press conference in Beijing with the announced measures as a reaction to what has been,” says Cho.
But:
— China cannot just open up wide. They still have an inadequate healthcare system.
“Living with the corona”
The pace will therefore not be particularly fast, according to Cho. The lack of hospital beds is a problem along with the fact that it will take a long time to vaccinate the people.
He therefore believes that it may take all of 2023 before all restrictions are dismantled.
— They must now live with the corona in the same way as Europe and other parts of the world have done and flatten the corona curve.
Change rhetoric
To succeed in this, the Communist Party and Xi Jinping must now change their rhetoric, according to Cho. This means, among other things, that epidemiologists and medical experts get more space.
Cho says everything has to be turned into something positive. It will be said that the first phase of the war against covid was completely successful – “but now we are entering the next phase, which will be even more successful”.
— They have a challenge regarding the official narrative – which has been that the outside world has problems but not China. But China has really only postponed the problems that are now emerging.