In the wake of recent protests, China has announced that it is relaxing the many of the anti-Covid measures that it has maintained since the start of the pandemic. The protests, which started in late November, were sparked by a deadly apartment fire in Urumqi, the capital city of Xinjiang Province, which killed ten people in a tragedy that was quickly attributed to the stringent Covid lockdown on Chinese social media.
These protests reflect a growing undercurrent of discontent spreading throughout China. Many citizens have grown unhappy with the recurring lockdowns and draconian restrictions – especially as the rest of the world moves away from a pandemic mentality.
Until now, China has remained committed to its “Zero Covid” policy, imposing harsh lockdowns on affected areas and tracking the movements of new cases with precision. It has been suggested that Chinese officials view the country’s pandemic track record as a lynchpin in its international relations, and fear backlash if they relax the lockdowns and there is an immediate spike in Covid cases.
The new announcement suggests that these concerns may have been overridden by more-pressing prospect of widespread unrest. The changes will, ostensibly, allow citizens greater freedom of movement and privacy. Under the new national guidelines, citizens can home-quarantine, travel more freely, and visit public spaces without their previously-required “health codes.” The new policy also places limits on the scope and duration of lockdowns – a move that seems designed as a response to the Urumqi apartment fire.
There is some evidence that the move is part of a larger plan: over the past few months, the CCP has been lifting restrictions and shifting the narrative surrounding Zero Covid, positioning themselves to “claim victory” rather than “concede defeat.”
If so, China seems poised to join other nations in a post-pandemic world.
