We are arguing over more than taking off masks, but China still has a long way to go when it comes to coronavirus.
Shanghai, China's largest economic city, has been effectively locked down since the 28th of last month due to the spread of Corona, and even now, after a month has passed, there is no sign of lifting it.
First of all, the people living there suffer, but the aftermath like the butterfly effect is spreading beyond China to Korea and the world.
This is because China is the 'factory of the world' and the Shanghai area is the largest export industrial base where China's automobile and electronic manufacturing industries are concentrated.
Korea, which has a high industrial dependence on China, will be hit directly.
The United States and Europe, where prices can be lowered only with industrial products made in China, are also in trouble.
If inflation is not met, the US should raise interest rates more and faster.
This goes back and forth again and shocks our country.
China's COVID-19 quarantine policy is 'zero corona'.
It is the opposite of 'With Corona'.
It is not going to tolerate the outbreak of the corona virus.
This causes a lot of unreasonable things to happen.
Children under the age of 6 who were confirmed were also strongly criticized for separating them from their parents and isolating them in a children's hospital.
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The global spread of COVID-19 has reached several inflection points.
A typical example is the advent of vaccines and the advent of omicron mutations.
As Western countries began to vaccinate, they relaxed controls faster than us, and normalized economic and social activities.
Countries have experienced that Omicron is so contagious that it will eventually subside until the number of confirmed cases peaks.
On the other hand, China does not seem to have any intention to revise its 'zero corona' policy even in a situation where residents' protests against the endless high-intensity lockdown policy are intensifying.
Why?
How long will China insist on zero corona?
The answer lies with President Xi Jinping and general secretary of the Communist Party.
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[What is it?] Characteristics of China's 'Zero Corona' policy
Zero Corona.
It means that we will not tolerate even a single corona outbreak out of a population of 1.4 billion.
In Chinese, it is called 'Qingling (淸零)' policy.
On April 8, 2020, after ending the 76-day lockdown in Wuhan, where the outbreak of COVID-19 first began, the Chinese government announced a "dynamic zero-corona" policy.
If a confirmed case occurs, a wide radius is designated as a danger zone and residents are tied up for at least 14 days.
If the cumulative spread of more than 100 cases is determined to be impossible to trace the infection chain, the entire city will be locked down.
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This regional blockade is called 'Pengcheng (封城).' Block entry. Mobilize public officials and local volunteers to deliver daily necessities, such as groceries, to homes. This is different from the initial blockade of Western countries that allowed outings for essential shopping
. This is a characteristic of zero corona: Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, one of China's four largest cities and export industry centers with a population of 17.5 million, has stopped for a week from March 14, and has been suspended for a week in Xi'an, with a population of 13 million, and Changchun, with a population of over 8 million. Xianyang, an industrial city of 9 million people, also suffered “fengcheong.” In mid-March, Jilin Province banned all 24.1 million residents from moving in and out of the province. In China, where public security wields undisputed power, being beaten for violating a stay-at-home order also do
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[SBS on-site video] 'Massive resistance protest' in Pudong, Shanghai, 3 weeks of lockdown...
‘Hunger’ is scarier than the Communist Party
On April 6, in a city in Shandong Province, a video was recorded of two people, who are believed to be quarantine enforcement officials, grabbing a man and forcibly shaving his head.
The reason was that he had violated the restraining order.
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The second pillar of the zero-corona policy is extensive nucleic acid testing.
As for how large-scale it is, when the number of confirmed cases of the delta mutation spread in Xiamen, Fujian Province, in September 2021, all 5 million Xiamen citizens were tested four times.
In July 2021, all citizens of Nanjing with a population of 9.3 million, and in Shenzhen with a population of 17.5 million last month, PCR tests were conducted three times during the control period.
Shanghai, with a population of 26 million, is no exception.
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The third characteristic of Zero Corona is recklessly radical and decisive quarantine facilities.
Build large-scale quarantine facilities such as convention centers and forcibly detain confirmed patients.
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[So, did it work?] Not bad, until Omicron appeared...
If we use our naming method, China's zero-corona policy could be called 'C-Quarantine' after the initials of 'China'.
In September 2020, China held a quarantine commendation contest and declared victory in the war against COVID-19.
It was a time when most countries in the world were in the midst of a pandemic and lockdown.
President Xi Jinping directly awarded medals to those of merit in quarantine, praising, saying, "The significant achievements in the COVID-19 war have demonstrated the excellence of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system."
At the time, it seemed that China would be the first country in the world to return to normal life.
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Until September 2021, China could keep the cumulative number of confirmed cases below 100,000 and the cumulative number of deaths below 5,000.
By that time, the cumulative number of confirmed cases was half of ours, and the cumulative number of deaths was twice our number.
Considering China's huge population and being the first country to develop COVID-19, it can be said that the results were quite good.
At the end of last year, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhao Lijian gave a face-to-face interview to a foreign reporter.
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Omicron, China was no exception.
By 2022, things have changed.
In January of this year, Omicron was confirmed in nine major cities in six provinces, including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Shenzhen, and Dalian.
All of them are politically and economically important cities.
In mid-January, Omicron confirmed patients were unable to go to work, causing logistical disruptions in Ningbo and other ports.
Anxiety began to sprout in the hearts of Chinese people who were relieved that they had overcome Corona 19.
From March of this year, as Omicron spreads centered on the export industrial zone in the south, the slope of the graph of confirmed cases sharply rises.
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China's daily new cases jumped to 1,000 from around March 10.
Korea had over 300,000 new daily confirmed cases at this time, so it is a very small number compared to that, but it is worth noting that the graph is popping out.
It's the same surge we've seen in almost every country in the world where Omicron was first swept away.
China also started the Omicron main game in March of this year.
The start of the Shanghai lockdown
Shanghai, a megalopolis with a population of 26 million and a provincial-level administrative district, has originally implemented the most gentle COVID-19 policy in China.
Unlike other cities where the entire city entered into a large-scale blockade called 'Fengcheng' when the cumulative spread of cases exceeds 100, Shanghai divides the blockade into smaller blocks and mobilizes administrative power in a short period of time to reduce the first and second close contacts. I wrote a method of finding and isolating it.
However, Omicron spread so quickly that no matter how much administrative power was released, it could not be pursued by close contact isolation.
According to China's official announcement at the end of March, the number of daily corona cases soared to 5,000, and half of them came from Shanghai, which forced Shanghai to switch to a large-scale lockdown.
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Chinese authorities have decided to implement a circular city blockade in Shanghai from March 28 and conduct full inspections of 26 million citizens.
Based on the Huangpu River, the center of Shanghai, the city is divided into east and west, and the execution is carried out alternately for four days.
People within the containment zone must stay at home and do not operate public transport such as buses, subways and taxis.
In addition, businesses in the containment area are urged to work from home, except for public services such as water, electricity, fuel, gas and telecommunications.
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Random isolation... Poor facilities and food service
Although the Chinese authorities adopted a more flexible approach than the case of Wuhan, which blocked the entire city for 76 days, the side effects of the lockdown were not formidable.
Kim Ji-seong, a correspondent for SBS Beijing, also delivered the voice of a Korean citizen who was isolated in a poor facility mixed with other confirmed patients regardless of the presence or severity of symptoms, even though he had already tested negative.
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[SBS Correspondent Kim Ji-seong's report] The atmosphere in China is not good...
The story of a truck driver who came to Shanghai to deliver potatoes to a song criticizing the lockdown
and ended up living homeless after being struck by the lockdown also drew attention.
Wei, along with two of his fellow drivers, left Laiwu, Shandong Province, on March 28, sharing 100 tons of potatoes in three large trailers.
It was scheduled to arrive at the Shanghai Wholesale Market at dawn on March 29, unload potatoes, and return to Laiwu immediately.
However, as soon as he arrived in Shanghai, the wholesale market was closed.
The next day, the lockdown was further expanded and it was impossible to go anywhere.
With the help of a broker who asked to transport the potatoes, he managed to make his home in a nearby warehouse.
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All restaurants and shops were closed, so filling the stomach was a problem.
With the help of an intermediary, he obtained cooking oil and salt and cooked potatoes for a living.
After 10 days in Shanghai, they succeeded in disposing of the loaded potatoes, but this time, the broker who helped them was confirmed and quarantined and contact was cut off.
They inquired all over the place to get a pass to return to Laiwu, but were unsuccessful.
Residents who could not get out of the housing complex due to blockades received complaints on social media that the authorities provided food, but the quantity was insufficient and the condition was bad.
Residents raised their voices and protested against the Communist Party's chief executive in Shanghai, who visited the site.
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repressive and violent enforcement
Another problem is that lockdowns and quarantines are implemented suddenly and harshly.
It is known that the residents of Shanghai call the agents wearing white protective suits as 'white guards' by comparing them to the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.
On the 6th, in the Pudong New District of Shanghai, there was an incident where quarantine agents beat and killed the dog of a confirmed person who was quarantined at a facility on the roadside.
In the yard where parents and small children were separated when confirmed, the authorities could not tolerate the companionship of dogs.
A confirmed resident reluctantly got on the bus bound for the quarantine facility with his dog left, and this tragedy occurred as soon as the bus departed.
An official from the residents' committee said in an interview with the local media, "I was worried that there might be bacteria or something on it."
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In addition, there were many cases of violent treatment of citizens who came out of the house to get food because they were frustrated by being locked in the house, because they "go out outside of control".
Strong resistance from residents, which is rare in China... Even directly targeting the Communist Party
As a result, protests from residents, which are rarely seen in mainland China, are erupting.
On the 14th, residents held a mass protest at a rental apartment complex in Shanghai's Pudong New District.
This is because the authorities have ordered 11 buildings in the complex to be evacuated, saying that they have been designated as quarantine facilities for those infected with COVID-19.
Residents cried and knelt down and appealed for the cancellation of the eviction order, but police officers in quarantine suits violently suppressed them.
It is reported that other outraged residents poured out, and the demonstrators later increased to 1,800 people.
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A growing number of people are also directly criticizing the Communist Party beyond the taboo.
A video of a man violating lockdown guidelines and violently criticizing the Communist Party and Communism while leaving his house and calling someone has also spread through social media.
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A hip-hop video that harshly criticizes the government's COVID-19 policy also became a hot topic.
(Of course, the video was deleted due to censorship not long after.) He is a Shanghai rapper named 'Astro', and the lyrics are as follows.
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This backlash is also related to the specificity of the city of Shanghai.
Beijing is the political and military capital in northern China, while Shanghai is the economic capital in southern China.
Shanghai people have historically experienced exchanges and trade with the outside world, so they are much more open and culturally proud.
Therefore, the reaction is greater and it is a more politically sensitive issue compared to other cities to which Beijing-style control has been applied.
Why insist on zero corona? (1) The problem of vaccines made in China
In China, only vaccines made by domestic pharmaceutical companies such as Sinovac and Sinopharm are used.
The Chinese vaccine is a traditional method of inactivating the virus and injecting it into the body to make antibodies - the so-called 'death vaccine' method.
Although it is cheap, easy to store and distribute, and has few side effects, it is less effective than Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that use mRNA, causing controversy over the so-called 'water vaccine'.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) data, the existing COVID-19 infection prevention rate of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine was half that of the Pfizer vaccine.
The ability of the omicron variant to prevent infection is even weaker.
According to a study published by the University of Hong Kong late last year, five out of 25 Pfizer vaccinated people prevented Omicron, but not all 25 people who received Sinovac prevented the infection.
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Most Western countries, including Korea, have advanced their vaccination rates sufficiently and then moved on to with Corona, but it is difficult for China, which insisted on its own vaccines, to take such an approach.
Why insist on zero corona? (2) Lack of infrastructure for critical care
In China, there is a shortage of intensive care unit (ICU) beds for critically ill patients.
According to statistics from the Chinese authorities, in 2021, the number of ICU beds in China was 4.37 per 100,000 people.
It is half of South Korea and 1/3 of that of the United States.
Regional differences are also large.
In Beijing and Shanghai, the largest cities in China, the number of intensive care units per 100,000 population is more than 6, 1.5 times higher than the Chinese average, but Gansu, Jiangxi, Hebei, Fujian, Anhui, and Hainan have 3.5 or less. If the number of patients explodes, there is a high risk of collapse of the medical system.
Even in Shanghai, the wealthiest city, patients with other ailments are dying because they cannot go to hospitals.
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Experts who said 'With Corona' but were driven by 'Baekookno'
In China, the origin of the coronavirus is claimed to be the United States.
The U.S. virus was transferred to China and the first case of the virus was reported in Wuhan.
China's C-Quarantine epic is that it overcame this with the patriotic struggle of the Chinese and recorded the world's lowest level of confirmed cases and deaths, while also achieving economic growth.
At the apex is Xi Jinping, the leader of the Communist Party, who led all of this.
Quarantine is politics.
As a result, it is not easy to change direction.
Experts who said that we should switch to 'With Corona' by examining the experiences of other countries and the science of the virus had to shut their mouths after receiving various pressures and criticism of 'Savagery'.
A representative example of this is Wonhong Jang.
Wenhong Zhang is an executive at Fudan University Hospital in Shanghai, a well-known health expert in China.
On July 29 last year, he wrote an article on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, urging the transition to 'with Corona'.
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When the post was posted, a number of Chinese criticized him, including former ministers and professors at prestigious universities.
Viruses are an object to be eradicated, not an object to coexist.
Criticism of the declaration of surrender against the virus also emerged.
This was a political attack that had little to do with the meaning of 'capitulation to the United States'.
This is because Chinese authorities are claiming that COVID-19 originated in the United States.
Some patriotic netizens denounced him as 'the contemporary Wang Jingwei'.
Wang Jingwei (汪精衛) is a person who wrote the stigma of a pro-Japanese patriot who betrayed the Chinese people in the 1940s.
He even appeared in the expression 'a dog raised by the United States'.
In the end, Jang Won-hong defeated his claim, saying, 'The current policy is appropriate' after 20 days.
Even a medical scientist who is recognized as authoritative by the Chinese authorities is not easy to talk about changing the quarantine policy.
Zhong Nanshan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, who is revered as China's medical hero for fighting SARS, wrote on the 6th in the "National Science Review", an academic journal published by Oxford University, that zero-corona is impossible in the long term.
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This article was translated into Chinese on the 18th, 10 days after it was published, and published in Chinese media, but was soon deleted.
Like Wonhong Jang, he did not listen to the mourners, but his argument was evaluated to be contrary to the current 'policy direction of the authorities'.
Xi Jinping adheres to zero corona: 'Victory comes from perseverance'
President Xi Jinping convened a meeting of the Communist Party's Central Politburo on March 17, and instructed that it be more thorough in preventing the spread of COVID-19.
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President Xi Jinping said, "If we endure to the end, we will eventually overcome."
We need to make continuous efforts so that we do not neglect quarantine,” he said.
"We must make our best efforts to realize 'real-time corona zero' through scientific and meticulous measures and to contain the spread of infectious diseases."
The economic impact of the Shanghai blockade
Because the will of the supreme leader is 'if we endure, we will win' and 'realize zero corona', so not only Shanghai but also surrounding metropolitan areas such as Shenzhen are suffering from lockdowns.
As a result, the entire Chinese automobile and electronics industry is in shock.
As global companies such as Tesla and Apple, which have factories in the area, clamored, the authorities took the initiative and allowed some exceptions to operate.
The condition was that the employees had to settle for lodging and lodging in the factory and not go out.
However, it is difficult for production to normalize as employees who are quarantined or blocked in their residence cannot go to work, and there are still difficulties in procurement of materials and parts.
China's economic growth rate was 4.8% in the first quarter of this year (January to March).
That in itself isn't that bad.
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The problem is that most of the growth in the first quarter (January) was achieved in January and February, and the economic performance of March, which suffered from turmoil due to the rapid spread of Corona in the economic hub, was quite bad.
Retail sales in China fell 3.5% in March from a year earlier.
Consumption fell for the first time since July 2020.
Employment statistics are also deteriorating.
Production also slowed.
The New York Times predicted that the growth rate in the second quarter, which would reflect this situation, would not be very good.
Sparks in the Korean economy
The Hyundai Research Institute has analyzed that if China's economic growth rate falls by 1 percentage point, Korea's economic growth rate will be under pressure to decrease by 0.5 percentage point.
Our core industries, such as batteries and semiconductors, are highly dependent on parts and materials imported from China.
According to analysis by Jeong Hyung-gon, senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP), more than 80% of Korea's battery-related imports and more than 30% of semiconductor-related imports come from China.
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Senior Research Fellow Jeong said, "In the automobile and mobile phone sectors, the proportion of imports from Shanghai is high at 11.2% and 14.3%, respectively. It is expected to be bigger, so we have to prepare in advance.”
The Shanghai Trade Office of KOTRA also issued a report containing a warning message.
"The impact on container logistics transportation is significant as the areas near Shanghai, such as Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Anhui, continue to maintain strict control policies," he said.
“The prolonged quarantine control in Shanghai is now a significant pressure factor on supply chain and logistics operations across China,” he said.
The trade situation in April will get even worse,” said local experts.
Direct shock waves are also appearing at domestic production sites.
Gwangju Global Motors (GGM), which produces the compact SUV Casper, is having difficulties in receiving airbag control units (ACUs) manufactured in China.
The company has been producing an average of 200 Casper units per day, but the production line was suspended from the afternoon of the 18th to the 20th due to disruptions in the supply and demand of parts made in China.
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A significant shock is expected in the domestic financial market as well.
Without industrial products manufactured in China at low prices, countries such as the United States cannot lower prices.
However, the ongoing coronavirus lockdown in China is exacerbating the chaos in the global supply chain, which has already been tangled up by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
If inflation (inflation) is not caught, the US will have to raise interest rates faster and more, which will put pressure on Korea to raise interest rates further.
Otherwise, there is a high risk of foreign capital flowing out.
However, raising interest rates will make it difficult for people who have already borrowed a lot of debt to buy a house or use it as a livelihood fund, as well as the self-employed who have been living on loans during the social distancing period.
The prolonged corona virus in China poses a huge dilemma for our economy as well.
After all, because of Xi Jinping's 'third term coronation ceremony'
In China, the relationship between state power and citizens is different from those of liberal democracies.
China's leadership has the idea that 'China is such a vast country and has a large population, so it is impossible to rule while listening to everything'.
Even Deng Xiaoping, who made China what it is today through reform and opening-up, did the same.
Among the citizens, 'Thanks to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, I have lived this much.
There are many who think that the strong leadership of the party is essential for the common good.
It is also unreasonable to argue that the cumulative number of confirmed cases and deaths are significantly lower than in liberal democracies thanks to the zero-corona policy.
To that end, will they accept the same controls that are currently taking place in China?
It is a matter of values and a matter of choice.
"You idiot, it's the economy!" from the US election
There is a saying
That's half right.
The economy is important because the direction of power depends on the economy.
If the economy is a matter of living and eating, power is a matter of life and death.
For some people, the economy may not be as important as power.
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The most important issue in China in recent years is the unobtrusive implementation of Xi Jinping's third term as President at the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of China to be held around October this year.
The three consecutive appointments are likened to the 'enthronement ceremony of the Xi emperor' as they break the decades-long practice of the Chinese leadership and achieve 'long-term rule through constitutional amendment', causing much controversy.
In order to ensure the smooth confirmation of Xi Jinping's third term in office, various propaganda has been strengthened and opposition public opinion has been neutralized by censorship. is there?
Moreover, while it is now happening in Shanghai, more than 1,200 kilometers from Beijing, can the CCP tolerate a similar thing happening in Beijing this summer?
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This is why many experts expect the Communist Party to remain 'zero-corona' until October this year, although the Communist Party is not unaware of the reality, although it will show flexibility in details from time to time.
[Composition: Hyunsik Lee, D Content Producer / Content Design: Jisoo Ok]