BEIJING In China, the communal rage against the corona restrictions has flared up through the broad ranks of the people in an unprecedented way.
Many blame the authorities’ strict coronavirus restrictions for the death of ten apartment building residents in a fire on Thursday night in western Xinjiang.
At the Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, central China, twenty thousand workers manufacturing iPhones recently threw their gloves on the counter and went home. The reason was the corona restrictions and salary.
In Beijing, the middle class sipping lattes agree in their discussion groups that they will help each other if a neighbor is taken against their will to a centralized quarantine in Spartan-style barrack villages.
Expression of opinion is not uncommon in authoritarian China, but the almost three-year-long covid restrictions are uniting the people with an extraordinary bond. Stress is shared regardless of ethnic or geographic background.
Everyone is in the same boat and the boat is rocking.
It claimed ten lives the fire took place in Urumqi, the home province of the state-persecuted Uyghur minority in Xinjiang. The fire department did not have time to put out the flames that started on the fifteenth floor in time, and the victims died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Videos of desperate cries for help from the flames circulated on China’s Twitter-style Weibo. Censors also removed sweaty hat videos showing a large demonstration in Urumqi at night. Demonstrations against the administration’s actions are rare in authoritarian China.
On the Internet, the Chinese began to argue about whether the corona restrictions made it difficult to help.
Xinjiang has been in a corona lockdown for three months. According to the authorities, there were only minor restrictions in the house in question and the victims would have been able to escape from their homes. “The ability of some residents to save themselves was weak,” says the director of the Urumqi rescue service Li Wensheng at the press conference.
The internet erupted with rage. Wouldn’t people have run away from the fire if they had the chance? The defenses of the authorities are not easily believed, as the past three years have seen numerous sad cases where the corona restrictions have prevented getting help in time.
The restrictions had been in effect in Urumqi for three months already. The cars had been standing on the side of the streets all that time. There was a quarantine fence around the house. The effect of the restrictions on the slowness of the rescue work seems obvious to the critics.
In China, it was enough for a long time understanding for zero tolerance. Life has been normal at times – sometimes even easier than in Europe during the pandemic waves. But the threat of quarantine, if even a single infection is found, has loomed in the background.
And now there are. The latest omicron variant is spreading with rage. It can be found in almost every province.
In the earlier stages of the pandemic, the Chinese watched in horror as the state’s propaganda machine reported the number of sick and dead people in Western countries. A Chinese asked me, genuinely surprised, why Europeans don’t take care of their weakest but spread the virus without masks and moving around in public places.
In China, the virus was feared to be fatal. A widespread pandemic is feared to overload the medical care system. The authorities remind that too many elderly people have not received the vaccine, even though about 90 percent of the population has received two vaccines.
However, there has always been a hope for a time when the restrictions will be lifted, everyday life and their own finances will return to normal, and the Chinese will be able to travel the world again.
The previous milestone was the party meeting of the Communist Party held in October. But the country’s leadership ended up only swearing the continuation of zero tolerance.
The restrictions have tightened in the capital Beijing, unprecedentedly steep. In the city, there is fear of a large-scale arrest similar to the Shanghai spring shutdown, where food may run out.
The people watching the Qatar football matches on TV wonder at the same time how it is possible that in other parts of the world they live a healthy-looking everyday life without masks. One Weibo user claimed that he thought that other parts of the world would have already died from covid, but the race broadcasts proved the assumption wrong.
China has known how to protest before, but now emerging communal protests are a new step in China. Now the ranks of the people are rising to oppose the country’s nuclear policy, both in factories, Uyghur areas and in the prosperous tower blocks of Beijing.
Covid politics is bringing the people together in a whole new way, which includes civil disobedience. This will certainly not please the country’s leadership.
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