CCP’s Harsh COVID Response Endangers China

Xi Jinping’s draconian “Zero Covid” policy is in place as Covid cases in Shanghai top 25,000 on Tuesday. The strict, extended lockdown is taking on new meaning in cities across the country this month as President Xi continues his April 5 order effectively shutting down the Shanghai metropolis, among other major urban areas. The unintended consequences of Xi’s action are reverberating among a population already reeling from global supply chain issues. Children are being separated from parents. Truckers who regularly haul food into Shanghai are refusing to travel into the city over concerns they will be caught in a net and unable to leave once inside it. Many drivers are refusing to make any urban deliveries, leaving residents to scramble for goods and scarce staples in local food stores. Authorities imposed a “two-phase lockdown on its 25 million residents” and extended an existing lockdown in eastern neighborhoods with positive cases by up to nine days, according to Laura He, writing for CNN Business. People who once trusted the government in Beijing to look out for their welfare are increasingly suspicious of Xi’s ability to handle the latest Covid outbreak.

Shanghai, the hardest hit city, is an important container shipping and logistics hub that supplies goods throughout the country. Shànghǎi Gǎng (上海港),the city’s deep-water seaport, is considered the world’s fastest growing port facility and a center for foreign trade with China. It serves as an important link in China’s 21^st century Maritime Silk Road that connects the country to Singapore. This week more than 300 ships are stalled waiting to discharge their cargo. According to Maersk, one of the world’s largest shipping companies, “Trucking service in and out [of] Shanghai will be severely impacted by 30% due to a full lockdown on Shanghai’s Pudong and Puxi areas.” Beijing commonly lies about the country’s economic data. It will be harder now as the government can’t easily conceal the lack of critical food supplies its urban residents need to survive.

The Chinese government is projecting a 5.5% national growth rate for 2022. As of April, according to Zhuang Pinghui of the South China Morning Post, “Strict pandemic measures across the country could cost US $46 billion per month in lost economic output as social acceptance also wears thin.” It appears that Beijing “will need to fudge its numbers,” according to one analyst, “to reach its target.” People who have not been free to leave their homes in a month are openly angry at the government. Medical care issues, according to Foreign Policy’s James Palmer, are so acute that foreign consulates in Shanghai are relocating staff outside the city. Yet despite over 150,000 recorded Covid cases in the city, China has not reported a single death, casting further doubt on the CCP leadership’s credibility. Palm points out that “One underrated factor shaping the impact of these lockdowns is how many Chinese still live in collective housing. Students are trapped in six-person dorms, migrant workers in temporary shelters at building sites, and waiters or shop staff in employer-provided apartments. Along with limited space and lack of freezers, that has limited the ability of households to effectively stockpile resources for lockdowns.”

The combined pressures are creating and exposing cracks in the image China intends to project to the world. Domestically, rifts are opening between the citizenry and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This places Xi Jinping and the CCP leadership in a difficult balancing act between keeping his promise of a Zero Covid policy in place and reducing the tensions among the populace inside China. If Xi abandons his program, he will be viewed as failing to keep his word. In a society still adhering to a culture based on “saving face,” Xi’s legacy as a paramount leader is at risk is he misses this year’s GDP figures or allows the virus to spread. The Covid pandemic, coupled with a domestic economic downturn and Xi Jinping’s close relationship with Vladimir Putin, may be enough to raise questions about the stability and legitimacy of the CCP leadership and Xi Jinping himself. That could portend more pressive measures ahead of the people of China.

Photo: Shanghai (Pixabay)

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.