Shanghai says its reopening
But it’s still doing Covid lockdowns
Will China ever stop locking down?
Welcome to China Uncensored. I’m Matt Gnaizda, filling in today for Chris Chappell.
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark. You should be using
a VPN like Surfshark to protect yourself whenever you go online.
Finally, after two-plus months of a Zero-Covid lockdown, Shanghai is reopening.
Once again, a thriving metropolis!
Streets full of life!
Ah, the hustle and bustle.
Oh hey, look! More people!
All of them out and about, enjoying the day, going to a…Covid testing site.
Isn’t Zero-Covid great?
Now the footage I just showed you was from the international news service Reuters.
Chinese state-run media have a slightly different take on the situation.
Here’s footage from state-run China News Service. They say Shanghai streets are getting back to
“normal.” To be clear, we did not speed up this footage. China News Service did that.
Yeah, when you have to speed up footage to make it look like there are more people on the street,
that doesn’t exactly scream “getting back to normal.”
To be fair, here’s some state-run media footage that actually shows a decent number of people
on the streets. You can see dozens of people at a time. Dozens! In a city of 26 million people.
It turns out this was probably the busiest street in Shanghai.
According to a reporter for the Economist, state-run media are using this street
to make it look like Shanghai is back to normal, when it is not.
Now that Shanghai is slowly reopening, Chinese authorities are trying to make people forget
all of the ways they’ve screwed up over the last few months.
And to do that they need to emphasize how great things are in Shanghai now.
Turning defeat into victory.
Shanghai is aiming to end its lockdown by June 1. That’s only one week from now.
So get ready for a giant load of propaganda.
Like, isn’t it great that the Shanghai Metro is starting to reopen?
Let’s hear from the man on the street. Or woman in the subway.
So that didn’t exactly go as planned. My favorite part is the attempt to save it by moving the mic
and camera away... while we can still hear her trash talking the lockdown.
But don’t worry, they’ll fix it in post.
Let’s try asking someone else how they’re doing, shall we?
Chinese aunties. They tell it like it is.
But this is a big risk for Chinese officials. The Chinese Communist Party needs to declare victory
in Shanghai next week. So they’re using propaganda to pump up the positive vibes.
The problem is, Shanghai residents aren’t buying it.
Especially when they keep getting locked down again.
Over the weekend, Shanghai’s Jing’an district went back into lockdown. Of course, they’re not calling
it that. They’re calling it a quiet period. What a fun lockdown euphemism. Everyone needs a
quiet period, just like in preschool. Look, you’ve been outside for an entire 30 minutes. You must be
exhausted. Go home and take a nap. For the next three days. Then you can go outside again. Maybe.
But this keeps happening over and over, while the Chinese regime tries to tell the world
that Shanghai is getting back to normal. So yeah, people in Shanghai are angry.
And after the break, it gets worse.
Welcome back.
What will Shanghai residents do when they finally get out of lockdown?
Go to Shanghai Disneyland!
Ok, maybe not. That is the stuff of nightmares.
But Shanghai residents don’t have to worry about that for now. Because a lot of them still aren’t
allowed to leave their neighborhoods, even though they’re supposed to be.
That’s because the neighborhood committees want to keep them locked down.
These committees are made of low-level officials. Sometimes they’re even volunteers.
And they say whether people can leave or not.
According to official numbers, 85 percent of Shanghai residents are living in Covid-free areas.
And they’re supposed to be able to leave their
apartment complexes and walk around their neighborhoods.
But neighborhood committees aren’t letting them out. Or they’re only letting them out
for 20 minutes. Or they’re only letting them walk 20 meters from their apartment complex.
It’s totally arbitrary. And stupid. And it’s because the neighborhood committees
are afraid. They’re afraid that if they let people out
and they get Covid, then the neighborhood committee will get in trouble.
And to be fair, they probably will.
This is how the Chinese Communist Party works. The directives come down from the top,
and if anything goes wrong, the people on the bottom get the blame.
People usually don’t get punished for following the rules *too* strictly. So neighborhood
committees are incentivized to not let people out until it’s 100% safe. And it’s never 100% safe.
Which means that in Shanghai, sudden lockdowns of neighborhoods or districts
are going to keep happening, even after the city supposedly reopens.
Speaking of lockdowns, China just locked down Tianjin, a port city of 14 million people.
The Chinese regime is not calling it a lockdown, though. They’re calling it
“static management.” Another fun lockdown euphemism!
People have to remain “static in their place of residence” except for Covid testing of course.
And they’re also moving thousands of people into quarantine camps.
And the Tianjin lockdown is going to keep going for a while.
Because Tianjin is less than 100 miles from Beijing.
And the Chinese Communist Party absolutely cannot have a big Covid outbreak in Beijing.
Which they’re definitely worried about.
Beijing is tightening their Covid policies. Of course, they’re not calling it a lockdown either.
They’re just extending work-from-home requirements.
And sending thousands of people to quarantine camps. Even though they’re Covid-negative.
They haven’t actually locked people in their apartments yet. But it’s going in that direction.
Especially because Communist Party official Sun Chunlan just did a Covid inspection of Beijing.
And whenever she does one of these, harsher lockdowns follow.
For example, she said that Beijing officials need to “speed up contact tracing, transfer,
and quarantine work, to achieve Zero-Covid community transmission as fast as possible.”
So what that means is more lockdowns, more testing, and sending anyone who
*might* test positive to a quarantine camp. Even if they don’t have Covid.
When these fences start going up, that’s not a good sign.
But I do see a lot of fun Covid euphemisms in Beijing’s future.
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Once again, I’m Matt Gnaizda. Thanks for watching China Uncensored.