It is hard to imagine.
But for the last year
and a half or so, as much of the world
was grappling with how to contain COVID
without locking society down
completely, China
was locking down completely.
So much so that ordinary people began
taking to the streets in a country
where doing
so comes at a very steep cost.
Now, in response,
some local authorities appear
to be easing restrictions somewhat seen.
And so in a Wang reports now from Beijing
This is the kind of line Beijing
are standing outside in the cold
to get their COVID test.
A 48 hour test
is required to get into most places,
but there aren't many places to go.
Much of Beijing is still closed down.
This is one of the most popular
tourist places in the city.
But the restaurants are largely closed
and the malls are pretty empty.
So this McDonald's is still open.
But for takeaway only.
But even to get takeaway,
you've got to prove
that you're clear of COVID.
Here's how I do it.
I open up the health
app on my smartphone.
I scan the QR code
in my can.
So it says I've got a green code
and I've got a recent POVA test,
so I'm good to go.
This code dictates
all of our daily lives in China.
Green means good to go.
Red means
I may have to isolate at home
or go to a mass quarantine facility.
This allows China to track the movements
of virtually all
1.4 billion people
in the name of contact tracing.
I've got to scan my code
to get into a taxi,
a public park, a mall,
or a coffee shop,
or even a public bathroom.
I ran into a group of delivery
people on the street.
They've got to do COVID test
every single day to do their jobs.
This woman tells me
the pandemic has been hard on her.
I ask her why.
She says it's
because she's scared of the virus.
Getting COVID
in China is unlike anywhere else.
In the world.
You and your close contacts
all get sent to a quarantine center.
This is a convention center in Beijing
that's been turned
into a massive quarantine facility
with thousands of beds.
But some of these facilities
in the country,
they are in very rundown
and unsanitary condition.
And then your whole building or community
could go into lockdown.
So we need
I spoke to a man
who's been in and out of quarantine
six times already just this year.
He tells me his whole building
of more than 200 families
went to a quarantine facility last month
because they were considered
close contacts.
He says he's not scared to get COVID
because Omicron is less severe
and his whole family has been vaccinated.
I approached a few people
just released
from this mass quarantine center here.
I asked if they had tested
positive for COVID.
Yes.
The man
nods and says they have recovered.
How many days did you spend in there?
I asked.
Seven days, he said.
Unprecedented protests recently
erupted across China.
They're chanting that
they don't want COVID tests.
They want freedom.
Authorities swiftly
cracked down on the protesters,
but they are finally softening
their stance on zero COVID.
Some cities are lifting lockdowns,
changing COVID testing requirements.
Under some conditions,
people can now quarantine at home
if they have COVID, which is a huge deal
But this country has already built up
a whole infrastructure around zero COVID,
spending all of its resources
on quarantine facilities
and COVID testing.
So it's going to be a long and
slow exit from zero COVID.
Selina Wang joins us now.
If China is finally easing
some COVID restrictions,
does that mean that the protests worked?
I mean,
is that a victory for demonstrators?
Yeah, Anderson,
I think it's fair to call it
this tentative partial victory,
because it is remarkable
to see that an authoritarian
China protests
appear to have forced the Communist Party
to essentially change
its tune on zero COVID.
It's clear
that it made the government realize
zero COVID is not possible or sustainable
and it's even a threat
to social stability.
It's now been more than a year
since Omer crowd was first detected,
but only now Anderson.
Finally, is state
media citing months old research
and publishing stories
that Omer Khan is less deadly.
This is a huge shift in China
because before this, authorities
were demonizing COVID
and in some cases
even censoring
scientifically accepted information.
But the loosening of restrictions here
they are happening in a patchwork
across the country.
Some places are easing rules.
Others are still clinging
on to zero COVID.
And you have some people in China
celebrating the change,
but others
they're so frustrated and angry
because all of this has been
a wake up call
that the government can take away
your freedom
at any point and overturn your life.
Anderson Wang, appreciate it
and get some perspective now
from Fareed Zakaria, host
of Fareed Zakaria GPS
Fareed,
we've seen local Chinese authorities
begin to roll back COVID controls.
Do you think this is being directed
to the national level
or are these local authorities
being allowed more latitude
to make their own decisions?
No, this is a national decision.
The vice premier, the head of the China's
COVID czar Central and said effectively
that they were moving
into a different phase,
that they're couching it
in terms that the new strain
strains are not
that are not as virulent, etcetera,
but clearly it is a retreat.
They have realized
that they simply cannot keep
people locked up
with these kind of punitive measures.
Forever.
The problem, Anderson, is the population
in China has very low immunity.
Partly this is the success of their zero
COVID policy
that few people have had gotten COVID.
But part of it
is that they have been
very slow on vaccines
and the Chinese vaccine.
Sinovac is not very good,
particularly against Omicron
and the new variants.
So they have a problem
as they start opening up the population,
which is not
does not have strong
immunities, is going to start
getting infected.
What we have to see is what they do, that
there has been
some reporting
that another issue
is not just the low
and the low immunity numbers,
but that China has spent the focus on
maintaining this authoritarian
lockdown policy and not using that
as an opportunity
to build up
the infrastructure
of the hospital systems
and the like
so that
the money has gone toward the lockdown
as opposed to building up
a medical infrastructure.
That's absolutely right.
I think part of it
was that they got spooked
by the pandemic part of it,
I think
was a kind of defensive reaction
to the Trump administration
badgering them about origins of COVID.
But they went full force
into the idea
that they were going to show the world
that they can handle this
better than anyone.
It became a kind of test of systems
for them.
Another piece of it, Anderson,
as I think you're implying, is
for the Communist Party,
having a lot of control over
your citizens seemed like a good idea.
They had this traffic light system
of red,
yellow and green
which told citizens
when they could go where.
And this perhaps
comes more naturally to a system
that is fundamentally
about a lot of control
and they do not have a very strong public
infrastructure system.
One of the areas where China has not had
miraculous growth.
And, you know, let's be clear
they have had miraculous growth
economically and all that,
but they don't have
a great public health system.
I mean, to give you a contrast, Cuba
has a better public health system,
I think, than China does.
China is much richer.
Multiple
US officials have voiced support for
for the protesters.
Do you think that will affect
the Chinese response in any way
No, I think you've got to be very careful
with this.
These are these are real protests.
It's a very interesting
and important development,
but mostly
what people are protesting
is the COVID lockdowns
and the crazy extent of of them.
There were some protests
which were against Xi Jinping
and against the Communist Party.
But to a large extent,
these seem
to have been deep frustration with
the COVID policy.
It's not clear to me
that these are
in the same league
as the kind of protests in Iran,
which are really existential
and about the regime's,
that the nature of its
ideological control or the like,
you know, the protests against Russia
and that
hundreds of thousands of people fleeing.
This seems to me
fundamentally centered around
a policy that they think
that the central government
should reverse
rather than some kind of frontal attack
on the legitimacy of the Communist Party.
Fareed Zakaria, appreciate your time.
Fascinating. Thank you.