ANALYSIS | Chinese cities rush to lock their doors in a show of loyalty to Xi's 'zero covid' strategy

What is the future of China under Xi Jinping?

4:18

Hong Kong (CNN) --

More than 70 Chinese cities have gone into full or partial COVID-19 lockdowns since late August, affecting more than 300 million people, as local authorities race to stamp out infections. at all costs in the countdown to the expected third term of leader Xi Jinping.

Since Aug. 20, at least 74 cities with a combined population of 313 million have imposed lockdowns that span entire cities, districts or multiple neighborhoods, according to CNN calculations.

Among them are 15 provincial capitals and Tianjin, a provincial municipality.

• The Chinese metropolis of Chengdu orders confinement to 21 million residents for hundreds of cases of covid-19

Many of the restrictions are still in place.

According to Chinese financial magazine Caixin, 33 cities are currently under partial or full lockdowns.

Experts say more cities are likely to be added in the coming weeks.

The sweeping restrictions disrupting lives and businesses contrast with a return to normal life in much of the world, where societies have come to live with the virus.

However, China insists that the "zero covid" strategy is saving lives.

Health authorities have cited the relatively low vaccination rate of the elderly and inadequate rural health care as obstacles to relaxing restrictions, but China's public health experts say political factors have also played a role. .

Xi, a staunch supporter of the country's uncompromising "zero covid" strategy, is about to be anointed as the country's top leader for another five years at the 20th Party Congress, scheduled to start on Oct. 16.

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The highly choreographed event is meant to be a moment of celebration and vindication of the achievements of the Party, and of Xi personally, during his decade in power.

And a severe outbreak could undermine that triumphant image, experts say.

"The Party wants to make sure that nothing untoward, such as a major outbreak, could threaten social stability, cast a shadow over the leadership transition process, and of course tarnish the credibility of Xi's personal leadership," said Yanzhong Huang, senior researcher at global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Residents line up for COVID-19 screening in the city of Chengdu in southwest China's Sichuan province on Sept. 2.

The ruling Communist Party has used the "zero covid" strategy to argue that its political model is superior to that of Western democracies, and Xi has endorsed this policy.

Earlier this year, a painful two-month lockdown in Shanghai sparked a public backlash and crippled the economy, prompting some to question the zero-tolerance approach.

In response, Xi issued a strong warning against critics, vowing to "resolutely fight any word or act that distorts, calls into question or denies" his "zero covid" policy.

Officials across the country have taken notice.

The main lesson they have learned from Shanghai, according to Huang, is to act more decisively and immediately at the slightest potential outbreak.

For local officials, doubling down on “zero covid” is a way to toe the Party line, prove their loyalty to Xi and avoid any large-scale, career-threatening outbreak weeks before the Party congress.

"This creates a strong incentive for them to take extreme and heavy-handed preventive measures," Huang said.

"In the next month and a half, we are going to see more cities under lockdown."

• The head of the WHO describes China's zero covid program as unsustainable and censors it

Mass lockdowns and growing discontent in China

Widespread lockdowns, sometimes in response to a handful of cases, have affected several metropolises with more than 10 million inhabitants and major industrial centers.

In southwestern China, the megacity of Chengdu put its 21 million people on lockdown on Thursday.

On Sunday, authorities expanded it to most of the city and ordered more mass testing from Monday to Wednesday.

The city's digital system used to record Covid tests has crashed repeatedly due to the surge in testing, leading to long lines at the centers.

Photos circulating on social media show health workers raising their arms and holding mobile phones up in the air, in a futile attempt to receive better signals.

Neusoft Corporation, the Chinese company that supplies the software, blamed a "network malfunction" for the outages in a statement released over the weekend.

On Sunday, a Chengdu mother sadly recounted in a video that she had lost her seriously ill son after he was forcibly quarantined for a week and missed crucial time to treat his heart condition.

CNN has not been able to independently verify her claims and the government has yet to respond, but the video went viral on social media, sparking widespread anger and sympathy.

The costs of the "zero covid" strategy have also taken their toll on smaller cities or counties that have received far less media or public attention.

• What is the economic, political and mental health cost of China's "zero covid-19" policy?

Daqing, a city of 2.7 million known for its oil fields in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, has also declared a lockdown in major districts after reporting hundreds of cases last week.

The restrictions did not attract attention until Friday last week, when Su Guangyu, a 27-year-old resident, posted online that his pregnant wife had miscarried after being denied medical care due to the lockdown.

Following protests from netizens, Daqing authorities declared on Saturday that they would "thoroughly investigate" the case.

In the western region of Xinjiang, some residents of Yining county have taken to social media to call for an end to the month-long lockdown, which has led to shortages of food and other daily necessities, according to their posts.

And in the central metropolis of Wuhan, the original epicenter of the pandemic that imposed the world's first Covid lockdown, residents of the residential community of Panlongcheng staged a protest over the weekend, demanding authorities lift the lockdown. a week, according to the images of social networks.

Although initially supportive of the zero-tolerance approach, a growing part of the Chinese population is increasingly frustrated by the endless restrictions on their daily lives, as well as the devastating blow it deals to the economy.

But Huang of the Council on Foreign Relations said so far the social unrest remains manageable for the state.

"A tipping point hasn't been reached yet. Most people are still swayed by the government narrative about the need for zero covid," he said, citing deep-seated fears of the virus and its health impacts in recent years. long term.

Huang said the 20th Party Congress could open a "political window for possible rule change" away from "zero covid", but any change was likely to come gradually.

"Expectations of a big policy change after the congress could be wishful thinking," he said.

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