There are scary scenes happening in Chinese cities right now. Family members are forced to cremate the bodies of their loved ones in the streets. The crematorium is overfilled. There are too many corona deaths.
Almost overnight, the government’s “Zero Covid” policy was lifted and the country has been in chaos ever since. The measures implemented by the ruler Xi Jinping (69) have caused a lot of damage socially and economically. In some industries, such as hospitality, more than a million businesses across the country went bankrupt. Unemployment among youth is close to 20 percent. A result of the tough Corona policy with curfews, contact bans and strict quarantine measures for visitors. All cities are locked.
“Such profound disruptions to daily work and personal life cause so much damage to society that the economy and population will suffer for a long time,” says Yufan Jiang, 66, a China expert at the Northwest Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (FHNW). ). He compares the precautionary measures and sudden relaxation to a tall dam that was first laboriously constructed and then suddenly destroyed.
It’s a tsunami of infection
But the government had no other choice. “The opening was inevitable,” explains the China expert. The pressure was too great, the Chinese were very angry. There were nationwide protests. Thousands of people took to the streets. Something rare in China. Xi tried to suppress the riots at first. And finally, relaxation was given. Since then, Corona has been spreading like wildfire.
Despite the dangerous situation in their own country. President Xi himself is glossing over the situation. He emphasized that “a new phase” has been entered in prevention and control measures, and that “everyone is working with determination” in the fight against the virus.
Jiang describes the “new phase” as a dam burst that triggers a tsunami of infection: According to internal estimates, 248 million people, or 18 percent of the population, were infected with corona in the first three weeks of December in the great wave of infections. Nationwide official statistics for the same period only mention 62,000 infections. At the beginning of January, the country stopped counting.
“Recovering lost time”
The number of skilled workers who became unemployed as a result is similar to the number caused by the forced isolation in the last three years. “Covid-related failures are definitely a huge burden on the economy, especially in productions or services where the presence is absolutely essential.”
Clear for Yufan Jiang: A sustainable solution is needed – not just damage limitation.
But for Chinese entrepreneurs, it’s now about “reclaiming lost time”. As soon as the corona measures were relaxed, trade delegations were sent from the coastal states to Europe and Japan in the hopes of “taking home orders for companies currently starving”.
No wonder, because the measures did not help China’s economic goals, which was envisioned according to the slogan “rise in the east and recede in the west” – the rise to the path of the sun and, figuratively, China. FHNW lecturer at Blick: “This target is far away.”