report in a China on the verge of implosion

On this hot spring weekend, in Beijing, endless queues form from 7 am in front of the shops: supermarkets, grocery stores… all are stormed and robbed. The rice, eggs, fruit and alcohol sections – especially beer and baiju, brandy made from rice or potatoes – are particularly popular. “Everyone buys products for fear that stocks will run out,” explains Zhou Jiaxing, 54, a chubby and ruddy Beijinger. Last week, like the 21 million inhabitants of the Chinese capital, Zhou Jiaxing received a message warning her that she had to undergo a Covid test. “I had big drops of sweat. I said to myself: “No! Not this nightmare that comes back”, explains this employee of China Telecom who, in June, will retire at 55, the legal age in China for women.

Read also: In pictures, Beijing, ghost town of 22 million inhabitants

This campaign of massive tests is the response to the discovery, in the city, of 50 daily cases of a variant of Omicron, for ten days. Threshold deemed intolerable in China. This Friday, Beijing cordoned off apartment buildings and closed cinemas, sports halls, shopping malls and even schools.
The reason for such a reaction? China and its hierarchs are appalled by what is happening in Shanghai. Censorship may be vigilant and the videos quickly removed, but the latter have time to circulate on Weibo or WeChat, the main social networks, and cause a terrible scare throughout the People’s Republic.

Read also: Shanghai: investigation into the heart of covid paranoia

Because the pearl of the Orient no longer has much to do with the “speckled metropolis of ancient and modern, the incandescent city which dazzles at every moment and where one breathes these invisible emanations like [si l’on] sipped a jade or ruby ​​liqueur” described by Zhou Weihui in “Shanghai Baby” at the dawn of the 2000s. From the Bund to Huaihai Lu, the emblematic arteries are as deserted as those where Will Smith wanders in “I Am Legend “, and as creepy as those of “Shaun of the Dead”. At any moment, we expect to see hordes of zombies appearing around the corner. Today, the bad dream experienced by its economic capital makes China fear zero Covid, a black scenario. Very black. A country blocked for months and a human toll which, according to experts who prefer to remain anonymous, “could exceed 5 million dead”.

“It’s simple, explains a… European mandarin, a fine connoisseur of the Chinese hospital. France, 68 million inhabitants, recorded 140,000 deaths. China, 20 times more populous, could experience at least 3 million if it lets the virus live its life. Even more, in view of the mediocrity of health and vaccination policies. According to researcher Antoine Bondaz, from the Foundation for Strategic Research, “the central government is stuck”. He details: “For two years, he has made his zero Covid strategy a propaganda tool. His speech: “Look at the Americans, they have 1 million dead. We, with zero Covid and our 5,000 victims, we protect the people.” “Impossible, therefore, to loosen the noose under penalty of contamination, even of massive deaths. And also impossible to give a horizon to the 350 million Chinese confined to the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“How to escape if a fire breaks out?” panics a resident. “You can die!” his neighbor yells at him

Every day, surreal scenes unfold in Shanghai. Double fences are installed in front of residences with doors already sealed. At night, tens of thousands of city dwellers howl their despair in a mournful and chilling lament. Videos posted on Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, show very violent street fights between residents, exasperated, and the “men in white”, these factotums in full Covid suits who police the city. The reason for this anger? The lack of information, the brutality of the repression and, above all, hunger and thirst. Supplies remain uncertain, tap water is not drinkable. In a video shared widely on social media, a Pudong district resident pleads with workers erecting a fence around his apartment building, “How can we run away if a fire breaks out? he asks. – You can die! We are just good enough to die, ”yells his upstairs neighbor.

The same scenes are unfolding all over the country. On Friday in Qian’an, Hebei province, another video, filmed by residents, showed officers, armed with a drill, sealing iron rods on each apartment door. A new exterior lock has been installed, coupled with an alarm system… to immure the residents alive!

The Shanghai authorities, they alternate hot and cold, announcing sometimes a relaxation, sometimes the strengthening of measures. Officially, the city has recorded less than 300 deaths for 500,000 cases. “The average age of those who died is 84.2 years and most of them had pre-existing conditions,” the statistics say. But, according to the “South China Morning Post”, a Hong Kong newspaper which is nevertheless partially censored, these figures are largely underestimated.

While most countries have chosen to “live with the virus”, China has put entire cities under cover in an attempt to stop it. About 350 million people, i.e. a quarter of the Chinese population scattered in 45 megacities, are currently undergoing a form of confinement: systematic health checks with mass tests, generalized temperature measurements, meticulous tracing of movements, quarantines. For the past few weeks, the Chinese health authorities, champions of disinformation, have half-acknowledged that they are facing a variant of Omicron that is less deadly than the Delta strain, but which spreads much faster. Their health system, antediluvian, risks being overwhelmed. It’s math.

Empire of old age, China has 300 million inhabitants over 60 years old. Out of pure nationalism, it refuses to import doses of messenger RNA vaccines and, with Sinovac or Sinopharm, only has second-rate serums. Chinese authorities say that 88% of the population is fully vaccinated, but 33% of people aged 60 and over have received only two doses, while 19% have had no injections. A proportion that rises to 50% among those over 80… According to Western studies, this lesser effectiveness of vaccines means that barely 25% of the population is protected against infection. “Without an appropriate vaccine, the spread is inevitable, with a mortality that will be higher than in us, who have a strong anti-severe form immunity, analyzes Jean-Michel Pawlotsky, head of the epidemiology laboratory at Henri-Mondor hospital. of Creteil. How much ? Hard to say. Eventually, their scientists will no doubt produce messenger RNA. However, as they do not want to import any, the key word is hold. »

Xi Jinping plays big with his ineffective vaccines and his propaganda that no longer works

Hold on, but how? By caulking and putting a whole country under glass? Impossible over time. Official data from Hong Kong, where Chinese and Western vaccines have cohabited, shows a wide disparity. The mortality rate for patients aged 80 and over who received two doses of Sinovac is 2.95%. Among those who opted for BioNTech (Moderna), it is 1.51%. “If it is true, as Xi Jinping and the Chinese CP politburo say, that ‘people’s lives come first’, then they should quickly endorse BioNTech. Because it can save lives, ”says Professor Jin, from the University of Hong Kong.

On the economic side, this is already very bad. Factories in confined towns have closed. According to a recent estimate by the University of Hong Kong, the Middle Kingdom suffers a loss of 295 billion yuan (42 billion euros) per month, or 3.1% of gross domestic product. Congestion at Shanghai’s ports, the world’s largest in terms of cargo tonnage, has increased 40% since March. And the worst is to be feared if the Pearl River Delta in the south of the country, the factory of the world, is overwhelmed by the virus.

Faithful to his doctrine of the great health wall, President Xi Jinping always affirms that “persistence is a victory”. This policy is directly attributable to him. It was he who granted himself the “victory” against the virus after the confinement of Wuhan. “He is the one who praises the superiority of the Chinese model, showing that the Party places the lives of the inhabitants above the economy, unlike Western democracies where the Covid has sown death by the millions. Giving up zero Covid could be interpreted as a sign of weakness,” analyzes Antoine Bondaz. With Beijing’s eventual lockdown, Xi Jinping is playing an important and very high-risk game. A lockdown in the center of power could be seen as a major setback to its overall credibility. Shanghai’s inability to control the virus is already weakening local Party leader Li Qiang. A member of the politburo, he risks being removed from it during the 20th Congress. If the disaster scenario continues, the next victim could well be the little helmsman. We are beginning to criticize his mode of governance, and his renewal for a third term, in October, could be compromised. At the beginning of the year, his Roman triumph paved with roses seemed certain. It is much less today.