Protesters may have influenced China’s leaders to end its zero-COVID policy, but rising doubt in China’s ability to remain a viable production center for the global supply chain also likely affected the loosening of restrictions.
The topic was part of “Covid-19 Policy: Impacts and Exit Strategies,” a panel discussion among China experts and part of the Center for Strategic and International Studies' (CSIS) “China at Home and Abroad: Opportunities and Fears” Big Data China 2022 Annual Conference on Dec. 13.
Big Data China is a collaboration between CSIS Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics and Stanford University's Center on China's Economy and Institutions (SCCEI).
Global events unrelated to supply-chain interruptions might have also played a role in China's relaxing of some COVID restrictions, panel participants said.
“Of course, many people will also point to the World Cup," University of Texas-Austin associate professor Wenghon Chen said at the event. "Many people in China see how the audience, the spectators in Qatar enjoy the game without a facial mask."
That increased the sense of the Chinese people that they were missing out, he said.
“When we thought about this panel weeks ago," event moderator Ilaria Mazzocco of CSI said, "we had no idea that situation would be so dynamic."
China has adhered to its strict policy to control COVID for almost three years. It entailed rolling lockdowns of neighborhoods, cities, strict testing policies, a variety of apps and phones to help with contact tracing and quarantine centers for those affected or exposed to infection, she said.
“There seem to be very few signs that this was changing or that the officials were considering different types of exit strategies," Mazzocco said. "And then in the past few weeks, everything started changing very, very quickly.
"So it's actually become very challenging to track all the different changes,” Mazzocco said.
Wenhong said he didn’t think they can pin down why COVID restrictions were loosened to one single variable or one single factor. The constant testing and increasing fears among the population that they would be sent to isolation facilities had them concerned. The white paper movement started by college students was another reason the government may have spoken up about the reconsideration of its policy. But the picture of FoxConn workers affected attracted attention to China’s ability to remain reliable as a production center for the global supply chain, he said.
“I actually think that China was already developing a plan to transition from the zero-COVID policy to another policy,” Winnie Yip, a Harvard University professor, said. “But that timeline might have been a bit slower than what people can put up with.”
China has recognized that the latest COVID variant is more infectious but less severe, which makes zero infection as a policy impossible to achieve. That requires a transition to a different goal.
“That is accepting that people will be affected but the goal is really to reduce the probability of mortality and also various cases that require hospitalization,” Yip said. “And that really has to be a vaccine.”
China is playing catch up, especially with its older population which has underlying conditions, she said.
Social pressure and economic pressure are pushing the government to remove the restrictions, she said.
The healthcare system has been overwhelmed, said Yanzhong Huang, Senior Fellow for the Council on Foreign Relations.
The government is trying to increase the vaccination rate among the elderly population, though it will take one to two months to significantly increase the rate, she said.
“It still bothers us China's cooperation could be more important than ever, right that the U.S. and China should seriously consider by now stick to sitting down and start a dialogue,” Yanzhong said.
The United States has offered Omnicron-specific vaccines, she said.
The national policy is to try to triage as patients fill hospitals, but implementation is difficult. Yip said an effective public education campaign is needed to let people know for minor problems, going to the hospital is the most dangerous place when considering infection.
