Despite Human Cost, China Won’t End Zero-COVID Approach: Experts

The picture of Chinese leader Xi Jinping with a mask is displayed at a convention centre that was previously used as a makeshift hospital for patients in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 15, 2021. Nicolas Asfouri/AFP via Getty Images

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) won’t end its zero-COVID-19 policy approach anytime soon as the legitimacy of the Party’s leader now rests on results of the health battle, though it comes at the expense of human rights.

This is what experts said during a Nov. 16 hearing on the Chinese regime’s zero-COVID policy held by the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), a bipartisan congressional commission.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, shed light on the second-order problems caused by the prolonged and stringent implementation of the CCP’s zero-COVID approach.

For example, by sealing people in their homes, residents struggled to obtain food and other necessitates throughout the pandemic, leaving non-COVID patients experiencing delays in treatment or being denied medical care. Repeated neighborhood lockdowns and school closures also aggravated the mental health crisis inside China.

“[Moving] away from zero-COVID is the only wise approach to transcend this human rights dilemma,” Huang told the panel.

But according to Rory Truex, assistant professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University, it’s not easy for leaders of the CCP to rethink their response to outbreaks.

The reason, he said, is because the strategy to quash outbreaks has been “tied personally to the party leader who will lose stature in the system if the policy were to fail.”

Since the first COVID-19 outbreak reported in Wuhan, the Chinese regime has countered the virus with harsh social control measures in an effort to eliminate every infection in the community. Snap lockdowns, daily testing, mass surveillance, and mandatory quarantine of anyone deemed a risk are among the methods that CCP officials have taken in the zero-COVID policy.

Three years later, many expect the communist regime could signal a pivot away from the harsh approach that has battered the economy, fueled frustration among the public, and isolated the country from the rest of the world.

But instead, Chinese leader Xi Jinping trumpeted the zero-COVID strategy as the best way to combat the pandemic at last month’s 20th Party Congress. During the twice-a-decade political gathering, Xi awarded himself the record-breaking third term in office and installed allies in the Party’s top decision-making bodies.

People line up to be tested for the COVID-19 coronavirus next to a propaganda poster showing China's President Xi Jinping on a bulletin board in Beijing on Aug. 31, 2022. JADE GAO/AFP via Getty Images

The zero-COVID approach, which has now become a signature policy for Xi, should be understood as a political campaign, according to Truex.

“This is a style of governance that was more common, of course, in the Mao era, but has seen a resurgence under a different form under Xi Jinping. In a campaign, the core leader announces a vague, ambitious policy goal, and lower level officials are left to fill in the blanks and implement policies to achieve the goal as best they can,” the researcher said. “This approach is often problematic as lower-level officials struggle to achieve targets, falsify data, and engage in performance to show their zeal to central leadership.”

According to the political expert, Xi sent a message that there is no immediate exit from the COVID curb strategy as he promoted the officials who faithfully implemented the draconian policy, namely Shanghai Party chief Li Qiang and Beijing Party secretary Cai Qi.

“Cai Qi is now the second-rank CCP member and is slated to take over the office of Premier. This means that the new Politburo Standing Committee is, in some sense, tainted by the zero COVID policy, and will have a strong vested interest in maintaining the perception that has been a success,” he said.

While Beijing announced a slight relaxation of some of its strict virus curbs, such as shortening quarantine time for inbound travelers, Truex said it is only “a very small incremental step” and doesn’t represent that the core principle of eliminating the virus will change.

“It is best not to underestimate the stickiness of this [zero-COVID] policy, which could very well be in some place in some form for many months or even years to come,” he said. “If it is rolled back, that rollback will likely be very incremental, and not abrupt.”

Call for Action

As no substantial changes to the policy are expected, the United States should continue to help Chinese citizens who sought to shed light on the pandemic inside China, advocates told the panel.

Sarah Cook, Freedom House’s research director for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, urged U.S. officials to consistently raise the issues of China’s press freedom and political prisoners in both public and private meetings with Chinese counterparts.

One such prisoner of conscience is Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer turned journalist who is serving a four-year term behind bars merely for reporting about the early COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan.

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• Jailed Chinese Journalist Who Reported on Wuhan Outbreak Might Not Survive the Winter, Family Says

The 39-year-old Zhang traveled to Wuhan in February to record the chaotic scenes unfolding at the pandemic’s epicenter during its initial lockdown. She detailed her visits and interviews conducted at hospitals, quarantine centers, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology in dozens of shaky cell phone videos uploaded on YouTube, challenging the CCP narrative that the outbreak was under control. Zhang was later charged with “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” a charge often laid by authorities against dissidents and whistleblowers.

Consistent international attention could help Zhang and other imprisoned Chinese nationals at least get more protection, though it’s hard to get them released in Xi’s China, Truex said.

“It helps protect them, it helps them get medical care, it gets to their family and to see them, it gets those lawyers to see them, sometimes it gets them out on medical parole, and it really can save people’s lives, even if it doesn’t get them out.”