Image: Cal Gao
Only a few months after the Winter Olympics in Beijing—held using a closed-loop system that Chinese state media lauded for delivering safe and “amazing result”— China announced it was indefinitely holding off the Asian Games that was scheduled for September. The Games in Hangzhou city would have also taken place in a closed-loop, where athletes and all involved were isolated from the general population, requiring daily tests and checks.
Beijing has also withdrawn as the Asian Cup host for 2023, as well as delayed or cancelled a number of smaller events. The withdrawals are no surprise as the country has been confronted with the biggest outbreaks in its most important cities, Shanghai and Beijing, since the virus first emerged in central Wuhan in late 2019.
The Chinese Communist Party’s resolute in a costly zero-Covid strategy, despite the Omicron’s lower virulence, is ever more politically charged in a year when a crucial congress this autumn would confirm the party chief’s groundbreaking third term, as well as prove that the Chinese governance model to contain the virus is a superior one. Early in May, the Standing Committee reiterated the commitment to the “dynamic zero-Covid” objective and pledged to double down on the very playbook of mass testing, quarantine and lockdowns used to “win the battle in Wuhan”.
“Persistance is victory,” the meeting of the group declared.
Yet, the weight of the two-month lockdown in Shanghai, along with numerous other cities shackled by partial lockdowns and controls, is shattering the Chinese economy and disrupting global supply chains. Economic growth in the first three months has slowed to 4.8 percent, which lagged the official annual target of 5.5 percent. The leadership recently confirmed the worrisome economic state to be worse off than the pre-2020 lockdown, and has rolled out a swathe of measures to stabilize the economy.
Shanghai has begun relaxing controls from June and the city aims to be back to normal by the end of the month. But the zero policy is expected to remain in place beyond the party congress, evidenced if not by the resignation of hosting the 2023 Asian Cup football competition. If it succeeds, China may become the only nation in the world to eradicate all outbreaks. Or perhaps to be joined by North Korea, whose leader reportedly ordered officials to learn from China’s success after the hermit state revealed its first outbreak of Covid-19.
