The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions
of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the
human costs.
In the NW city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a
man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk
district. He died of a heart attack.
They informed a woman who was 8 months pregnant and bleeding
that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby.
Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care
that he’d had nothing to eat after catching him out during the
lockdown. They beat him up.
The Xi’an govt was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown
in late December when cases were on the rise. But it wasn't prepared
to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the city’s
13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since
the country first locked down Wuhan in Jan 2020.
China’s early success in containing the pandemic thru iron-fist, authoritarian policies emboldened its officials, seemingly giving
them license to act with conviction and righteousness. Many
officials now believe that they must do everything within their
power to ensure zero Covid infections since it's the will of
their top leader, Xi Jinping.
For the officials, virus control comes first. The people’s lives, well-being and dignity come much later.
The govt has the help of a vast army of community workers who
carry out the policy with zeal and hordes of online nationalists
who attack anyone raising grievances or concerns. The tragedies
in Xi’an have prompted some Chinese people to question how those
enforcing the quarantine rules can behave like this and to ask
who holds ultimate responsibility.
“It’s very easy to blame the individuals who committed the banality
of evil,” a user called @ IWillNotResistIt wrote on Weibo, the
Chinese social media platform. “If you and I become the screws
in this gigantic machine, we might not be able to resist its
powerful pull either.”
“The banality of evil” is a concept Chinese intellectuals often
invoke in moments like Xi’an. It was coined by the philosopher
Hannah Arendt, who wrote that Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief
architects of the Holocaust, was an ordinary man who was motivated
by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.”
Chinese intellectuals are struck by how many officials and
civilians — often driven by professional ambition or obedience
— are willing to be the enablers of authoritarian policies.
When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan 2 years ago, it exposed
the weaknesses in China’s authoritarian system. Now, with patients
dying of non-Covid diseases, residents going hungry and officials
pointing fingers, the lockdown in Xi’an has shown how the
country’s political apparatus has ossified, bringing a ruthlessness
to its single-minded pursuit of a zero-Covid policy.
Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is in a much better
position than Wuhan in early 2020, when thousands of people died
of the virus, overwhelming the city’s medical system. Xi’an has
reported only 3 Covid-related deaths, the last one in March 2020.
The city said 95% of its adults were vaxxed by July. In the latest
wave, it had reported 2,017 confirmed cases by Monday and no deaths.
Still, it imposed a very harsh lockdown. Residents weren't allowed
to leave their compounds. Some buildings were locked up. Over
45,000 people were moved to quarantine facilities.
The city’s health code system, which is used to track people and
enforce quarantines, collapsed under heavy use. Deliveries largely disappeared. Some residents took to the internet to complain that
they didn’t have enough food.
A few community volunteers made a young man who ventured out to
buy food read a self-criticism letter in front of a video camera.
“I only cared about whether I had food to eat,” the young man
read, acc. to a widely shared video. “I didn’t take into account
the serious consequences my behavior could bring to the community.”
The volunteers later apologized, acc. to The Beijing News, a state
media outlet.
Three men were caught while escaping from Xi’an to the countryside, possibly to avoid the high costs of the lockdown. They hiked,
biked and swam in wintry days and nights. Two of them were
detained by the police, acc. to local police and media reports.
Together they were called the “Xi’an ironmen” on the Chinese internet.
Then there were the hospitals that denied patients access to
medical care and deprived their loved ones of the chance to
say goodbye.
The man who suffered chest pain as he was dying of a heart attack
waited 6 hours before a hospital finally admitted him. After his
condition worsened, his daughter begged hospital employees to let
her in and see him for the last time.
A male employee refused, acc. to a video she posted on Weibo
after her father’s death. “Don’t try to hijack me morally,” he
said in the video. “I’m just carrying out my duty.”
A few low-level Xi’an officials were punished. The head of the
city’s health commission apologized to the woman who suffered
the stillbirth. The general manager of a hospital was suspended.
Last Friday, the city announced that no medical facility could
reject patients on the basis of Covid tests.
But that was about it. Even the state broadcaster, China
Central TV, commented that some local officials were simply
blaming their underlings. It seemed, the broadcaster wrote,
only low-level cadres have been punished for these problems.
There are reasons people in the system showed little compassion
and few spoke up online.
An ER doctor in eastern Anhui Province was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for failing to follow pandemic control protocols by
treating a patient with a fever last year, acc. to CCTV.
A deputy director-level official at a govt agency in Beijing
lost his position last week after some social media users
reported that an article he wrote about the lockdown in Xi’an
contained untruthful info.
In the article, he called the lockdown measures “inhumane” and “cruel.” It bore the headline “The Sorrow of Xi’an Residents:
Why They Ran Away From Xi’an at the Risk of Breaking the Law
and Death.”
Since Wuhan, the Chinese internet has devolved into a parochial
platform for nationalists to praise China, the govt and the
Communist Party. No dissent or criticism is tolerated, with
online grievances attacked for providing ammo for hostile
foreign media.
Red, the social media platform, censored a post by the daughter
of the man who died of a heart attack because “it contained
negative info about the society,” acc. to a screenshot on her account.
In Xi’an, there is no author like Fang Fang writing her Wuhan
lockdown diary, no citizen journalist like Chen Qiushi, Fang
Bin or Zhang Zhan posting videos. The 4 of them have either
been silenced, detained, disappeared or left dying in jail —
sending a strong message to anyone who might dare to speak out
about Xi’an.
The only widely circulated, in-depth article about the Xi’an
lockdown was written by the former journalist Zhang Wenmin, a
Xi’an resident known by her pen name, Jiang Xue. Her article
has since been deleted, and state security officers have warned
her not to speak further on the matter, acc. to a person close
to her. Some social media users called her garbage that should
be taken out.
A few Chinese publications that had written excellent investi-
gative articles out of Wuhan didn’t send reporters to Xi’an
because they couldn’t secure passes to walk freely under
lockdown, acc. to people familiar with the situation.
The Xi’an lockdown debacle hasn’t seemed to persuade many people
in China to abandon the country’s no-holds-barred approach to
pandemic control.
A former athlete who is disabled and suffering from a series of
illnesses cursed Fang Fang for her Wuhan diary in 2020. Last
month, he posted on his Weibo account that he couldn’t buy
medicine because his compound in Xi’an was locked down. His
problems were solved, and now he uses the hashtag
#everyoneinpositiveenergy and retweets posts that attack
Ms. Zhang, the former journalist.
Despite announcing the city’s battle with the virus as a victory
last week, the govt isn’t relenting on much of the rules, and is
setting a very high bar for ending the lockdown. The party
secretary of Shaanxi told Xi’an officials on Monday that their
future pandemic control efforts should remain “strict.”
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.html
On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 12:01:46 PM UTC-8, David P. wrote:
The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the
human costs.
In the NW city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a
man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk
district. He died of a heart attack.
They informed a woman who was 8 months pregnant and bleeding
that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby.
Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care
that he’d had nothing to eat after catching him out during the
lockdown. They beat him up.
The Xi’an govt was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown
in late December when cases were on the rise. But it wasn't prepared
to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the city’s
13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since
the country first locked down Wuhan in Jan 2020.
China’s early success in containing the pandemic thru iron-fist, authoritarian policies emboldened its officials, seemingly giving
them license to act with conviction and righteousness. Many
officials now believe that they must do everything within their
power to ensure zero Covid infections since it's the will of
their top leader, Xi Jinping.
For the officials, virus control comes first. The people’s lives, well-being and dignity come much later.
The govt has the help of a vast army of community workers who
carry out the policy with zeal and hordes of online nationalists
who attack anyone raising grievances or concerns. The tragedies
in Xi’an have prompted some Chinese people to question how those enforcing the quarantine rules can behave like this and to ask
who holds ultimate responsibility.
“It’s very easy to blame the individuals who committed the banality
of evil,” a user called @ IWillNotResistIt wrote on Weibo, the
Chinese social media platform. “If you and I become the screws
in this gigantic machine, we might not be able to resist its
powerful pull either.”
“The banality of evil” is a concept Chinese intellectuals often
invoke in moments like Xi’an. It was coined by the philosopher
Hannah Arendt, who wrote that Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief
architects of the Holocaust, was an ordinary man who was motivated
by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.”
Chinese intellectuals are struck by how many officials and
civilians — often driven by professional ambition or obedience
— are willing to be the enablers of authoritarian policies.
When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan 2 years ago, it exposed
the weaknesses in China’s authoritarian system. Now, with patients
dying of non-Covid diseases, residents going hungry and officials
pointing fingers, the lockdown in Xi’an has shown how the
country’s political apparatus has ossified, bringing a ruthlessness
to its single-minded pursuit of a zero-Covid policy.
Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is in a much better
position than Wuhan in early 2020, when thousands of people died
of the virus, overwhelming the city’s medical system. Xi’an has reported only 3 Covid-related deaths, the last one in March 2020.
The city said 95% of its adults were vaxxed by July. In the latest
wave, it had reported 2,017 confirmed cases by Monday and no deaths.
Still, it imposed a very harsh lockdown. Residents weren't allowed
to leave their compounds. Some buildings were locked up. Over
45,000 people were moved to quarantine facilities.
The city’s health code system, which is used to track people and
enforce quarantines, collapsed under heavy use. Deliveries largely disappeared. Some residents took to the internet to complain that
they didn’t have enough food.
A few community volunteers made a young man who ventured out to
buy food read a self-criticism letter in front of a video camera.
“I only cared about whether I had food to eat,” the young man
read, acc. to a widely shared video. “I didn’t take into account
the serious consequences my behavior could bring to the community.”
The volunteers later apologized, acc. to The Beijing News, a state
media outlet.
Three men were caught while escaping from Xi’an to the countryside, possibly to avoid the high costs of the lockdown. They hiked,
biked and swam in wintry days and nights. Two of them were
detained by the police, acc. to local police and media reports.
Together they were called the “Xi’an ironmen” on the Chinese internet.
Then there were the hospitals that denied patients access to
medical care and deprived their loved ones of the chance to
say goodbye.
The man who suffered chest pain as he was dying of a heart attack
waited 6 hours before a hospital finally admitted him. After his
condition worsened, his daughter begged hospital employees to let
her in and see him for the last time.
A male employee refused, acc. to a video she posted on Weibo
after her father’s death. “Don’t try to hijack me morally,” he said in the video. “I’m just carrying out my duty.”
A few low-level Xi’an officials were punished. The head of the
city’s health commission apologized to the woman who suffered
the stillbirth. The general manager of a hospital was suspended.
Last Friday, the city announced that no medical facility could
reject patients on the basis of Covid tests.
But that was about it. Even the state broadcaster, China
Central TV, commented that some local officials were simply
blaming their underlings. It seemed, the broadcaster wrote,
only low-level cadres have been punished for these problems.
There are reasons people in the system showed little compassion
and few spoke up online.
An ER doctor in eastern Anhui Province was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for failing to follow pandemic control protocols by
treating a patient with a fever last year, acc. to CCTV.
A deputy director-level official at a govt agency in Beijing
lost his position last week after some social media users
reported that an article he wrote about the lockdown in Xi’an
contained untruthful info.
In the article, he called the lockdown measures “inhumane” and “cruel.” It bore the headline “The Sorrow of Xi’an Residents:
Why They Ran Away From Xi’an at the Risk of Breaking the Law
and Death.”
Since Wuhan, the Chinese internet has devolved into a parochial
platform for nationalists to praise China, the govt and the
Communist Party. No dissent or criticism is tolerated, with
online grievances attacked for providing ammo for hostile
foreign media.
Red, the social media platform, censored a post by the daughter
of the man who died of a heart attack because “it contained
negative info about the society,” acc. to a screenshot on her account.
In Xi’an, there is no author like Fang Fang writing her Wuhan
lockdown diary, no citizen journalist like Chen Qiushi, Fang
Bin or Zhang Zhan posting videos. The 4 of them have either
been silenced, detained, disappeared or left dying in jail —
sending a strong message to anyone who might dare to speak out
about Xi’an.
The only widely circulated, in-depth article about the Xi’an
lockdown was written by the former journalist Zhang Wenmin, a
Xi’an resident known by her pen name, Jiang Xue. Her article
has since been deleted, and state security officers have warned
her not to speak further on the matter, acc. to a person close
to her. Some social media users called her garbage that should
be taken out.
A few Chinese publications that had written excellent investi-
gative articles out of Wuhan didn’t send reporters to Xi’an
because they couldn’t secure passes to walk freely under
lockdown, acc. to people familiar with the situation.
The Xi’an lockdown debacle hasn’t seemed to persuade many people
in China to abandon the country’s no-holds-barred approach to
pandemic control.
A former athlete who is disabled and suffering from a series of
illnesses cursed Fang Fang for her Wuhan diary in 2020. Last
month, he posted on his Weibo account that he couldn’t buy
medicine because his compound in Xi’an was locked down. His
problems were solved, and now he uses the hashtag #everyoneinpositiveenergy and retweets posts that attack
Ms. Zhang, the former journalist.
Despite announcing the city’s battle with the virus as a victory
last week, the govt isn’t relenting on much of the rules, and is
setting a very high bar for ending the lockdown. The party
secretary of Shaanxi told Xi’an officials on Monday that their
future pandemic control efforts should remain “strict.”
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.htmlBoth the PRC and Taiwan are pursuing "zero Covid" policies. However, the PRC is doing it in a much more heavy-handed way.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/12/08/2003769212
On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 1:10:20 PM UTC-8, bmoore wrote:
On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 12:01:46 PM UTC-8, David P. wrote:
The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs
By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions
of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the
human costs.
In the NW city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a
man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk district. He died of a heart attack.
They informed a woman who was 8 months pregnant and bleeding
that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby.
Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care
that he’d had nothing to eat after catching him out during the lockdown. They beat him up.
The Xi’an govt was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown
in late December when cases were on the rise. But it wasn't prepared
to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the city’s
13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since
the country first locked down Wuhan in Jan 2020.
China’s early success in containing the pandemic thru iron-fist, authoritarian policies emboldened its officials, seemingly giving
them license to act with conviction and righteousness. Many
officials now believe that they must do everything within their
power to ensure zero Covid infections since it's the will of
their top leader, Xi Jinping.
For the officials, virus control comes first. The people’s lives, well-being and dignity come much later.
The govt has the help of a vast army of community workers who
carry out the policy with zeal and hordes of online nationalists
who attack anyone raising grievances or concerns. The tragedies
in Xi’an have prompted some Chinese people to question how those enforcing the quarantine rules can behave like this and to ask
who holds ultimate responsibility.
“It’s very easy to blame the individuals who committed the banality of evil,” a user called @ IWillNotResistIt wrote on Weibo, the
Chinese social media platform. “If you and I become the screws
in this gigantic machine, we might not be able to resist its
powerful pull either.”
“The banality of evil” is a concept Chinese intellectuals often invoke in moments like Xi’an. It was coined by the philosopher
Hannah Arendt, who wrote that Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, was an ordinary man who was motivated
by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.”
Chinese intellectuals are struck by how many officials and
civilians — often driven by professional ambition or obedience
— are willing to be the enablers of authoritarian policies.
When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan 2 years ago, it exposed
the weaknesses in China’s authoritarian system. Now, with patients dying of non-Covid diseases, residents going hungry and officials pointing fingers, the lockdown in Xi’an has shown how the
country’s political apparatus has ossified, bringing a ruthlessness
to its single-minded pursuit of a zero-Covid policy.
Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is in a much better
position than Wuhan in early 2020, when thousands of people died
of the virus, overwhelming the city’s medical system. Xi’an has reported only 3 Covid-related deaths, the last one in March 2020.
The city said 95% of its adults were vaxxed by July. In the latest
wave, it had reported 2,017 confirmed cases by Monday and no deaths.
Still, it imposed a very harsh lockdown. Residents weren't allowed
to leave their compounds. Some buildings were locked up. Over
45,000 people were moved to quarantine facilities.
The city’s health code system, which is used to track people and enforce quarantines, collapsed under heavy use. Deliveries largely disappeared. Some residents took to the internet to complain that
they didn’t have enough food.
A few community volunteers made a young man who ventured out to
buy food read a self-criticism letter in front of a video camera.
“I only cared about whether I had food to eat,” the young man
read, acc. to a widely shared video. “I didn’t take into account
the serious consequences my behavior could bring to the community.” The volunteers later apologized, acc. to The Beijing News, a state
media outlet.
Three men were caught while escaping from Xi’an to the countryside, possibly to avoid the high costs of the lockdown. They hiked,
biked and swam in wintry days and nights. Two of them were
detained by the police, acc. to local police and media reports.
Together they were called the “Xi’an ironmen” on the Chinese internet.
Then there were the hospitals that denied patients access to
medical care and deprived their loved ones of the chance to
say goodbye.
The man who suffered chest pain as he was dying of a heart attack
waited 6 hours before a hospital finally admitted him. After his condition worsened, his daughter begged hospital employees to let
her in and see him for the last time.
A male employee refused, acc. to a video she posted on Weibo
after her father’s death. “Don’t try to hijack me morally,” he said in the video. “I’m just carrying out my duty.”
A few low-level Xi’an officials were punished. The head of the city’s health commission apologized to the woman who suffered
the stillbirth. The general manager of a hospital was suspended.
Last Friday, the city announced that no medical facility could
reject patients on the basis of Covid tests.
But that was about it. Even the state broadcaster, China
Central TV, commented that some local officials were simply
blaming their underlings. It seemed, the broadcaster wrote,
only low-level cadres have been punished for these problems.
There are reasons people in the system showed little compassion
and few spoke up online.
An ER doctor in eastern Anhui Province was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for failing to follow pandemic control protocols by
treating a patient with a fever last year, acc. to CCTV.
A deputy director-level official at a govt agency in Beijing
lost his position last week after some social media users
reported that an article he wrote about the lockdown in Xi’an contained untruthful info.
In the article, he called the lockdown measures “inhumane” and “cruel.” It bore the headline “The Sorrow of Xi’an Residents: Why They Ran Away From Xi’an at the Risk of Breaking the Law
and Death.”
Since Wuhan, the Chinese internet has devolved into a parochial
platform for nationalists to praise China, the govt and the
Communist Party. No dissent or criticism is tolerated, with
online grievances attacked for providing ammo for hostile
foreign media.
Red, the social media platform, censored a post by the daughter
of the man who died of a heart attack because “it contained
negative info about the society,” acc. to a screenshot on her account.
In Xi’an, there is no author like Fang Fang writing her Wuhan
lockdown diary, no citizen journalist like Chen Qiushi, Fang
Bin or Zhang Zhan posting videos. The 4 of them have either
been silenced, detained, disappeared or left dying in jail —
sending a strong message to anyone who might dare to speak out
about Xi’an.
The only widely circulated, in-depth article about the Xi’an
lockdown was written by the former journalist Zhang Wenmin, a
Xi’an resident known by her pen name, Jiang Xue. Her article
has since been deleted, and state security officers have warned
her not to speak further on the matter, acc. to a person close
to her. Some social media users called her garbage that should
be taken out.
A few Chinese publications that had written excellent investi-
gative articles out of Wuhan didn’t send reporters to Xi’an
because they couldn’t secure passes to walk freely under
lockdown, acc. to people familiar with the situation.
The Xi’an lockdown debacle hasn’t seemed to persuade many people
in China to abandon the country’s no-holds-barred approach to
pandemic control.
A former athlete who is disabled and suffering from a series of illnesses cursed Fang Fang for her Wuhan diary in 2020. Last
month, he posted on his Weibo account that he couldn’t buy
medicine because his compound in Xi’an was locked down. His
problems were solved, and now he uses the hashtag #everyoneinpositiveenergy and retweets posts that attack
Ms. Zhang, the former journalist.
Despite announcing the city’s battle with the virus as a victory
last week, the govt isn’t relenting on much of the rules, and is setting a very high bar for ending the lockdown. The party
secretary of Shaanxi told Xi’an officials on Monday that their
future pandemic control efforts should remain “strict.”
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.htmlBoth the PRC and Taiwan are pursuing "zero Covid" policies. However, the PRC is doing it in a much more heavy-handed way.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/12/08/2003769212In the U.S.
Confirmed Cases
64,917,963
Deaths
849,241
China reports 165 new coronavirus cases for Jan 14 vs 201 a day earlier China reported 165 new confirmed coronavirus cases for Jan. 14, down from 201 a day earlier, its health authority said on ...
On Saturday, January 15, 2022 at 10:07:58 AM UTC-8, rst88...@gmail.com wrote:
On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 1:10:20 PM UTC-8, bmoore wrote:
On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 12:01:46 PM UTC-8, David P. wrote:
The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs
By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions
of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the
human costs.
In the NW city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a
man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk district. He died of a heart attack.
They informed a woman who was 8 months pregnant and bleeding
that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby.
Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care
that he’d had nothing to eat after catching him out during the lockdown. They beat him up.
The Xi’an govt was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown in late December when cases were on the rise. But it wasn't prepared to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the city’s
13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since
the country first locked down Wuhan in Jan 2020.
China’s early success in containing the pandemic thru iron-fist, authoritarian policies emboldened its officials, seemingly giving
them license to act with conviction and righteousness. Many
officials now believe that they must do everything within their
power to ensure zero Covid infections since it's the will of
their top leader, Xi Jinping.
For the officials, virus control comes first. The people’s lives, well-being and dignity come much later.
The govt has the help of a vast army of community workers who
carry out the policy with zeal and hordes of online nationalists
who attack anyone raising grievances or concerns. The tragedies
in Xi’an have prompted some Chinese people to question how those enforcing the quarantine rules can behave like this and to ask
who holds ultimate responsibility.
“It’s very easy to blame the individuals who committed the banality
of evil,” a user called @ IWillNotResistIt wrote on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform. “If you and I become the screws
in this gigantic machine, we might not be able to resist its
powerful pull either.”
“The banality of evil” is a concept Chinese intellectuals often invoke in moments like Xi’an. It was coined by the philosopher Hannah Arendt, who wrote that Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, was an ordinary man who was motivated
by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.”
Chinese intellectuals are struck by how many officials and
civilians — often driven by professional ambition or obedience
— are willing to be the enablers of authoritarian policies.
When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan 2 years ago, it exposed
the weaknesses in China’s authoritarian system. Now, with patients dying of non-Covid diseases, residents going hungry and officials pointing fingers, the lockdown in Xi’an has shown how the country’s political apparatus has ossified, bringing a ruthlessness to its single-minded pursuit of a zero-Covid policy.
Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is in a much better
position than Wuhan in early 2020, when thousands of people died
of the virus, overwhelming the city’s medical system. Xi’an has reported only 3 Covid-related deaths, the last one in March 2020.
The city said 95% of its adults were vaxxed by July. In the latest wave, it had reported 2,017 confirmed cases by Monday and no deaths.
Still, it imposed a very harsh lockdown. Residents weren't allowed
to leave their compounds. Some buildings were locked up. Over
45,000 people were moved to quarantine facilities.
The city’s health code system, which is used to track people and enforce quarantines, collapsed under heavy use. Deliveries largely disappeared. Some residents took to the internet to complain that
they didn’t have enough food.
A few community volunteers made a young man who ventured out to
buy food read a self-criticism letter in front of a video camera.
“I only cared about whether I had food to eat,” the young man read, acc. to a widely shared video. “I didn’t take into account the serious consequences my behavior could bring to the community.” The volunteers later apologized, acc. to The Beijing News, a state media outlet.
Three men were caught while escaping from Xi’an to the countryside, possibly to avoid the high costs of the lockdown. They hiked,
biked and swam in wintry days and nights. Two of them were
detained by the police, acc. to local police and media reports. Together they were called the “Xi’an ironmen” on the Chinese internet.
Then there were the hospitals that denied patients access to
medical care and deprived their loved ones of the chance to
say goodbye.
The man who suffered chest pain as he was dying of a heart attack waited 6 hours before a hospital finally admitted him. After his condition worsened, his daughter begged hospital employees to let
her in and see him for the last time.
A male employee refused, acc. to a video she posted on Weibo
after her father’s death. “Don’t try to hijack me morally,” he said in the video. “I’m just carrying out my duty.”
A few low-level Xi’an officials were punished. The head of the city’s health commission apologized to the woman who suffered
the stillbirth. The general manager of a hospital was suspended.
Last Friday, the city announced that no medical facility could
reject patients on the basis of Covid tests.
But that was about it. Even the state broadcaster, China
Central TV, commented that some local officials were simply
blaming their underlings. It seemed, the broadcaster wrote,
only low-level cadres have been punished for these problems.
There are reasons people in the system showed little compassion
and few spoke up online.
An ER doctor in eastern Anhui Province was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for failing to follow pandemic control protocols by
treating a patient with a fever last year, acc. to CCTV.
A deputy director-level official at a govt agency in Beijing
lost his position last week after some social media users
reported that an article he wrote about the lockdown in Xi’an contained untruthful info.
In the article, he called the lockdown measures “inhumane” and “cruel.” It bore the headline “The Sorrow of Xi’an Residents: Why They Ran Away From Xi’an at the Risk of Breaking the Law
and Death.”
Since Wuhan, the Chinese internet has devolved into a parochial platform for nationalists to praise China, the govt and the
Communist Party. No dissent or criticism is tolerated, with
online grievances attacked for providing ammo for hostile
foreign media.
Red, the social media platform, censored a post by the daughter
of the man who died of a heart attack because “it contained
negative info about the society,” acc. to a screenshot on her account.
In Xi’an, there is no author like Fang Fang writing her Wuhan lockdown diary, no citizen journalist like Chen Qiushi, Fang
Bin or Zhang Zhan posting videos. The 4 of them have either
been silenced, detained, disappeared or left dying in jail —
sending a strong message to anyone who might dare to speak out
about Xi’an.
The only widely circulated, in-depth article about the Xi’an lockdown was written by the former journalist Zhang Wenmin, a
Xi’an resident known by her pen name, Jiang Xue. Her article
has since been deleted, and state security officers have warned
her not to speak further on the matter, acc. to a person close
to her. Some social media users called her garbage that should
be taken out.
A few Chinese publications that had written excellent investi-
gative articles out of Wuhan didn’t send reporters to Xi’an because they couldn’t secure passes to walk freely under
lockdown, acc. to people familiar with the situation.
The Xi’an lockdown debacle hasn’t seemed to persuade many people in China to abandon the country’s no-holds-barred approach to pandemic control.
A former athlete who is disabled and suffering from a series of illnesses cursed Fang Fang for her Wuhan diary in 2020. Last
month, he posted on his Weibo account that he couldn’t buy
medicine because his compound in Xi’an was locked down. His
problems were solved, and now he uses the hashtag #everyoneinpositiveenergy and retweets posts that attack
Ms. Zhang, the former journalist.
Despite announcing the city’s battle with the virus as a victory last week, the govt isn’t relenting on much of the rules, and is setting a very high bar for ending the lockdown. The party
secretary of Shaanxi told Xi’an officials on Monday that their future pandemic control efforts should remain “strict.”
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.htmlBoth the PRC and Taiwan are pursuing "zero Covid" policies. However, the PRC is doing it in a much more heavy-handed way.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/12/08/2003769212In the U.S.
Confirmed Cases
64,917,963
Deaths
849,241
China reports 165 new coronavirus cases for Jan 14 vs 201 a day earlier China reported 165 new confirmed coronavirus cases for Jan. 14, down from 201 a day earlier, its health authority said on ...Did you know the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?
bmoore wrote:------
, David P. wrote:
The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs
By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
[...]
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.htmlBoth the PRC and Taiwan are pursuing "zero Covid" policies. However, the PRC is doing it in a much more heavy-handed way.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2021/12/08/2003769212In the U.S.
Confirmed Cases 64,917,963
Deaths 849,241
China reports 165 new coronavirus cases for Jan 14 vs 201 a day earlier China reported 165 new confirmed coronavirus cases for Jan. 14, down from 201 a day earlier, its health authority said on ...
The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions
of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the
human costs.
In the NW city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a
man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk
district. He died of a heart attack.
They informed a woman who was 8 months pregnant and bleeding
that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby.
Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care
that he’d had nothing to eat after catching him out during the
lockdown. They beat him up.
The Xi’an govt was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown
in late December when cases were on the rise. But it wasn't prepared
to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the city’s
13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since
the country first locked down Wuhan in Jan 2020.
China’s early success in containing the pandemic thru iron-fist, authoritarian policies emboldened its officials, seemingly giving
them license to act with conviction and righteousness. Many
officials now believe that they must do everything within their
power to ensure zero Covid infections since it's the will of
their top leader, Xi Jinping.
For the officials, virus control comes first. The people’s lives, well-being and dignity come much later.
The govt has the help of a vast army of community workers who
carry out the policy with zeal and hordes of online nationalists
who attack anyone raising grievances or concerns. The tragedies
in Xi’an have prompted some Chinese people to question how those
enforcing the quarantine rules can behave like this and to ask
who holds ultimate responsibility.
“It’s very easy to blame the individuals who committed the banality
of evil,” a user called @ IWillNotResistIt wrote on Weibo, the
Chinese social media platform. “If you and I become the screws
in this gigantic machine, we might not be able to resist its
powerful pull either.”
“The banality of evil” is a concept Chinese intellectuals often
invoke in moments like Xi’an. It was coined by the philosopher
Hannah Arendt, who wrote that Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief
architects of the Holocaust, was an ordinary man who was motivated
by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.”
Chinese intellectuals are struck by how many officials and
civilians — often driven by professional ambition or obedience
— are willing to be the enablers of authoritarian policies.
When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan 2 years ago, it exposed
the weaknesses in China’s authoritarian system. Now, with patients
dying of non-Covid diseases, residents going hungry and officials
pointing fingers, the lockdown in Xi’an has shown how the
country’s political apparatus has ossified, bringing a ruthlessness
to its single-minded pursuit of a zero-Covid policy.
Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is in a much better
position than Wuhan in early 2020, when thousands of people died
of the virus, overwhelming the city’s medical system. Xi’an has
reported only 3 Covid-related deaths, the last one in March 2020.
The city said 95% of its adults were vaxxed by July. In the latest
wave, it had reported 2,017 confirmed cases by Monday and no deaths.
Still, it imposed a very harsh lockdown. Residents weren't allowed
to leave their compounds. Some buildings were locked up. Over
45,000 people were moved to quarantine facilities.
The city’s health code system, which is used to track people and
enforce quarantines, collapsed under heavy use. Deliveries largely disappeared. Some residents took to the internet to complain that
they didn’t have enough food.
A few community volunteers made a young man who ventured out to
buy food read a self-criticism letter in front of a video camera.
“I only cared about whether I had food to eat,” the young man
read, acc. to a widely shared video. “I didn’t take into account
the serious consequences my behavior could bring to the community.”
The volunteers later apologized, acc. to The Beijing News, a state
media outlet.
Three men were caught while escaping from Xi’an to the countryside, possibly to avoid the high costs of the lockdown. They hiked,
biked and swam in wintry days and nights. Two of them were
detained by the police, acc. to local police and media reports.
Together they were called the “Xi’an ironmen” on the Chinese internet.
Then there were the hospitals that denied patients access to
medical care and deprived their loved ones of the chance to
say goodbye.
The man who suffered chest pain as he was dying of a heart attack
waited 6 hours before a hospital finally admitted him. After his
condition worsened, his daughter begged hospital employees to let
her in and see him for the last time.
A male employee refused, acc. to a video she posted on Weibo
after her father’s death. “Don’t try to hijack me morally,” he
said in the video. “I’m just carrying out my duty.”
A few low-level Xi’an officials were punished. The head of the
city’s health commission apologized to the woman who suffered
the stillbirth. The general manager of a hospital was suspended.
Last Friday, the city announced that no medical facility could
reject patients on the basis of Covid tests.
But that was about it. Even the state broadcaster, China
Central TV, commented that some local officials were simply
blaming their underlings. It seemed, the broadcaster wrote,
only low-level cadres have been punished for these problems.
There are reasons people in the system showed little compassion
and few spoke up online.
An ER doctor in eastern Anhui Province was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for failing to follow pandemic control protocols by
treating a patient with a fever last year, acc. to CCTV.
A deputy director-level official at a govt agency in Beijing
lost his position last week after some social media users
reported that an article he wrote about the lockdown in Xi’an
contained untruthful info.
In the article, he called the lockdown measures “inhumane” and “cruel.” It bore the headline “The Sorrow of Xi’an Residents:
Why They Ran Away From Xi’an at the Risk of Breaking the Law
and Death.”
Since Wuhan, the Chinese internet has devolved into a parochial
platform for nationalists to praise China, the govt and the
Communist Party. No dissent or criticism is tolerated, with
online grievances attacked for providing ammo for hostile
foreign media.
Red, the social media platform, censored a post by the daughter
of the man who died of a heart attack because “it contained
negative info about the society,” acc. to a screenshot on her account.
In Xi’an, there is no author like Fang Fang writing her Wuhan
lockdown diary, no citizen journalist like Chen Qiushi, Fang
Bin or Zhang Zhan posting videos. The 4 of them have either
been silenced, detained, disappeared or left dying in jail —
sending a strong message to anyone who might dare to speak out
about Xi’an.
The only widely circulated, in-depth article about the Xi’an
lockdown was written by the former journalist Zhang Wenmin, a
Xi’an resident known by her pen name, Jiang Xue. Her article
has since been deleted, and state security officers have warned
her not to speak further on the matter, acc. to a person close
to her. Some social media users called her garbage that should
be taken out.
A few Chinese publications that had written excellent investi-
gative articles out of Wuhan didn’t send reporters to Xi’an
because they couldn’t secure passes to walk freely under
lockdown, acc. to people familiar with the situation.
The Xi’an lockdown debacle hasn’t seemed to persuade many people
in China to abandon the country’s no-holds-barred approach to
pandemic control.
A former athlete who is disabled and suffering from a series of
illnesses cursed Fang Fang for her Wuhan diary in 2020. Last
month, he posted on his Weibo account that he couldn’t buy
medicine because his compound in Xi’an was locked down. His
problems were solved, and now he uses the hashtag
#everyoneinpositiveenergy and retweets posts that attack
Ms. Zhang, the former journalist.
Despite announcing the city’s battle with the virus as a victory
last week, the govt isn’t relenting on much of the rules, and is
setting a very high bar for ending the lockdown. The party
secretary of Shaanxi told Xi’an officials on Monday that their
future pandemic control efforts should remain “strict.”
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.html
On Friday, January 14, 2022 at 8:01:46 PM UTC, David P. wrote:pandemic has been very well under control in China. In contrast, US, Europe and countries which follow their ways have been hit by wave after wave of the pandemic. This is because they have failed to bring the pandemic under control.
The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy, at All Costs By Li Yuan, 1/12/22, New York Times
China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the
human costs.
In the NW city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a
man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk
district. He died of a heart attack.
They informed a woman who was 8 months pregnant and bleeding
that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby.
Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care
that he’d had nothing to eat after catching him out during the
lockdown. They beat him up.
The Xi’an govt was quick and resolute in imposing a strict lockdown
in late December when cases were on the rise. But it wasn't prepared
to provide food, medical care and other necessities to the city’s
13 million residents, creating chaos and crises not seen since
the country first locked down Wuhan in Jan 2020.
China’s early success in containing the pandemic thru iron-fist, authoritarian policies emboldened its officials, seemingly giving
them license to act with conviction and righteousness. Many
officials now believe that they must do everything within their
power to ensure zero Covid infections since it's the will of
their top leader, Xi Jinping.
For the officials, virus control comes first. The people’s lives, well-being and dignity come much later.
The govt has the help of a vast army of community workers who
carry out the policy with zeal and hordes of online nationalists
who attack anyone raising grievances or concerns. The tragedies
in Xi’an have prompted some Chinese people to question how those enforcing the quarantine rules can behave like this and to ask
who holds ultimate responsibility.
“It’s very easy to blame the individuals who committed the banality
of evil,” a user called @ IWillNotResistIt wrote on Weibo, the
Chinese social media platform. “If you and I become the screws
in this gigantic machine, we might not be able to resist its
powerful pull either.”
“The banality of evil” is a concept Chinese intellectuals often
invoke in moments like Xi’an. It was coined by the philosopher
Hannah Arendt, who wrote that Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief
architects of the Holocaust, was an ordinary man who was motivated
by “an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement.”
Chinese intellectuals are struck by how many officials and
civilians — often driven by professional ambition or obedience
— are willing to be the enablers of authoritarian policies.
When the coronavirus emerged in Wuhan 2 years ago, it exposed
the weaknesses in China’s authoritarian system. Now, with patients
dying of non-Covid diseases, residents going hungry and officials
pointing fingers, the lockdown in Xi’an has shown how the
country’s political apparatus has ossified, bringing a ruthlessness
to its single-minded pursuit of a zero-Covid policy.
Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, is in a much better
position than Wuhan in early 2020, when thousands of people died
of the virus, overwhelming the city’s medical system. Xi’an has reported only 3 Covid-related deaths, the last one in March 2020.
The city said 95% of its adults were vaxxed by July. In the latest
wave, it had reported 2,017 confirmed cases by Monday and no deaths.
Still, it imposed a very harsh lockdown. Residents weren't allowed
to leave their compounds. Some buildings were locked up. Over
45,000 people were moved to quarantine facilities.
The city’s health code system, which is used to track people and
enforce quarantines, collapsed under heavy use. Deliveries largely disappeared. Some residents took to the internet to complain that
they didn’t have enough food.
A few community volunteers made a young man who ventured out to
buy food read a self-criticism letter in front of a video camera.
“I only cared about whether I had food to eat,” the young man
read, acc. to a widely shared video. “I didn’t take into account
the serious consequences my behavior could bring to the community.”
The volunteers later apologized, acc. to The Beijing News, a state
media outlet.
Three men were caught while escaping from Xi’an to the countryside, possibly to avoid the high costs of the lockdown. They hiked,
biked and swam in wintry days and nights. Two of them were
detained by the police, acc. to local police and media reports.
Together they were called the “Xi’an ironmen” on the Chinese internet.
Then there were the hospitals that denied patients access to
medical care and deprived their loved ones of the chance to
say goodbye.
The man who suffered chest pain as he was dying of a heart attack
waited 6 hours before a hospital finally admitted him. After his
condition worsened, his daughter begged hospital employees to let
her in and see him for the last time.
A male employee refused, acc. to a video she posted on Weibo
after her father’s death. “Don’t try to hijack me morally,” he said in the video. “I’m just carrying out my duty.”
A few low-level Xi’an officials were punished. The head of the
city’s health commission apologized to the woman who suffered
the stillbirth. The general manager of a hospital was suspended.
Last Friday, the city announced that no medical facility could
reject patients on the basis of Covid tests.
But that was about it. Even the state broadcaster, China
Central TV, commented that some local officials were simply
blaming their underlings. It seemed, the broadcaster wrote,
only low-level cadres have been punished for these problems.
There are reasons people in the system showed little compassion
and few spoke up online.
An ER doctor in eastern Anhui Province was sentenced to 15 months
in prison for failing to follow pandemic control protocols by
treating a patient with a fever last year, acc. to CCTV.
A deputy director-level official at a govt agency in Beijing
lost his position last week after some social media users
reported that an article he wrote about the lockdown in Xi’an
contained untruthful info.
In the article, he called the lockdown measures “inhumane” and “cruel.” It bore the headline “The Sorrow of Xi’an Residents:
Why They Ran Away From Xi’an at the Risk of Breaking the Law
and Death.”
Since Wuhan, the Chinese internet has devolved into a parochial
platform for nationalists to praise China, the govt and the
Communist Party. No dissent or criticism is tolerated, with
online grievances attacked for providing ammo for hostile
foreign media.
Red, the social media platform, censored a post by the daughter
of the man who died of a heart attack because “it contained
negative info about the society,” acc. to a screenshot on her account.
In Xi’an, there is no author like Fang Fang writing her Wuhan
lockdown diary, no citizen journalist like Chen Qiushi, Fang
Bin or Zhang Zhan posting videos. The 4 of them have either
been silenced, detained, disappeared or left dying in jail —
sending a strong message to anyone who might dare to speak out
about Xi’an.
The only widely circulated, in-depth article about the Xi’an
lockdown was written by the former journalist Zhang Wenmin, a
Xi’an resident known by her pen name, Jiang Xue. Her article
has since been deleted, and state security officers have warned
her not to speak further on the matter, acc. to a person close
to her. Some social media users called her garbage that should
be taken out.
A few Chinese publications that had written excellent investi-
gative articles out of Wuhan didn’t send reporters to Xi’an
because they couldn’t secure passes to walk freely under
lockdown, acc. to people familiar with the situation.
The Xi’an lockdown debacle hasn’t seemed to persuade many people
in China to abandon the country’s no-holds-barred approach to
pandemic control.
A former athlete who is disabled and suffering from a series of
illnesses cursed Fang Fang for her Wuhan diary in 2020. Last
month, he posted on his Weibo account that he couldn’t buy
medicine because his compound in Xi’an was locked down. His
problems were solved, and now he uses the hashtag #everyoneinpositiveenergy and retweets posts that attack
Ms. Zhang, the former journalist.
Despite announcing the city’s battle with the virus as a victory
last week, the govt isn’t relenting on much of the rules, and is
setting a very high bar for ending the lockdown. The party
secretary of Shaanxi told Xi’an officials on Monday that their
future pandemic control efforts should remain “strict.”
“A needle-size loophole can funnel high wind,” he said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/12/business/china-zero-covid-policy-xian.htmlChina's zero-tolerance policy against the Covid-19 pandemic is not being enforced at all cost. That's a wrong assertion. The policy is enforced only if its overall effects are beneficial to China. And it is. Since the initial outbreak in Wuhan, the
The new Omicron variant of the virus is re-creating havoc in those countries again. Millions more infected everyday. Deaths are occurring in the thousands daily. Total US's death due to the pandemic, the highest in the world, is approaching 900K. Itwill easily pass that and grow towards One Million.
Governments in those countries are losing the battle against the virus. They are weak. They cannot lead their people to fight the virus. They are giving up the fight. They are tinkling with the idea of "living with the virus". It's the mentality of "Ifyou can't beat them, join them." They are joining the virus to kill the people! That's what these governments are doing.
Those countries are causing another round of devastation in countries under their influence, thereby endangering the whole world. Because of them, this pandemic will be with us all of a long time, with new variants creating new waves creating newdevastation on humanity.
| Sysop: | Keyop |
|---|---|
| Location: | Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, UK |
| Users: | 293 |
| Nodes: | 16 (2 / 14) |
| Uptime: | 239:38:34 |
| Calls: | 6,624 |
| Files: | 12,173 |
| Messages: | 5,320,014 |