China's "Zero Policy": Xi Jinping's New Era of Totalitarian Control

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China's new wave of COVID-19 outbreak in 2022 has turned into a severe economic and humanitarian crisis

Resist China Labor Forum

At the end of June, high-level CCP officials issued a heavy statement in Beijing, threatening to "normalize epidemic prevention in the next five years." A report in the Beijing Daily quoted Cai Qi, the secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, that Beijing would maintain a strict zero-zero policy for "the next five years", and other state media reprinted the report. Hours later, Cai Qi's remarks sparked public opinion on social media, and the article was deleted; censors also deleted all references to "five years." This is yet another startling fault of the CCP dictatorship and the Xi faction (Cai Qi is seen as a member of the Xi faction "Zhejiang Gang").

In the face of economic difficulties and the CCP's brutal anti-epidemic policies, public sentiment in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai has changed dramatically. This year's epidemic prevention measures marked the regime's complete "Orwellianization".

There are growing signs that the dismantling of the Xi Jinping regime is not a temporary fix, but a massive, permanent, semi-militarized system of social control that will be rolled out across the country. Cai Qi's slip of the tongue just confirmed what we saw.

The CCP is spreading repression techniques developed in Xinjiang across the country, some of which are already being used in Han areas — a practice sometimes referred to as “technological authoritarianism.” Marxists have warned that Xinjiang, which relentlessly oppresses its Muslim minority, has become a testing ground for mass surveillance by the CCP dictatorship. These means of surveillance and repression will seriously threaten all workers and youth throughout China.

Although the reckless and brutal mass lockdown under the zero-clearing policy cannot be compared with the white terror of mass detention and brainwashing education in Xinjiang, the CCP still conducts military-style law enforcement based on the arguments of pseudo-medicine. Xinjiang's concentration camps and slave factories are replaced by disgusting makeshift hospitals and capitalist production lines that "close-loop" workers.

economic paralysis

China, the world's second-largest economy, is increasingly paralyzed. Officials are likely to falsify GDP figures and fake growth in the second quarter, as Xi's plans to officially launch his lifetime in power at the 20th Party Congress will be further undermined if the shockingly bad economic data is made public.

Unemployment is skyrocketing, and a report from Peking University warns it could reach levels seen in 2020 when the outbreak first hit; 12% of the workforce — or 93 million people — were unemployed. Most economists warn that a rapid V-shaped rebound similar to two years ago is unlikely after this year's recession due to a number of factors.

Globally, all major economies are at risk of recession. China's housing crisis and related debt crunch added to the downward pressure. For many, income and job security are not as good as they were two years ago; it seems unlikely that consumers will set off a wave of "retaliatory spending" in the second half of the year.

According to Japanese investment bank Nomura Holdings, 373 million people in China were in full or partial lockdown in April. As the infection rate declined, the population under control dropped to 74 million in June, but with the spread of the BA.5 Omicron subtype variant, the population under control rose to 264 million as of July 19. Six months later, Xi'an, with a population of 13 million, announced the closure of the city again in July.

Those economists who hailed the "end" of the nightmare of China's epidemic lockdown in June (when Shanghai was briefly lifted) were apparently drunk and too accepting of the CCP's propaganda. But as China Labor Forum and others have warned, the government's strategy is doomed to "draw water in a basket" -- especially in the face of a rapidly spreading new variant of the coronavirus.

Is the Chinese system more "superior"?

Xi Jinping said that China has the best epidemic prevention policy in the world. However, his most powerful propaganda was the poor performance of most Western governments after decades of shrinking health care systems and budgets under neoliberalism. Now that vaccination programs and de facto "herd immunity" (achieved at great social cost) have freed most advanced capitalist countries from the pandemic, Xi Jinping's nationalist propaganda of "the superiority of the Chinese system" has fizzled out Many; and the Chinese people are beginning to compare their suffering to a world abroad that seems to have "returned to normal."

Globally, the death toll in China is indeed very low, but many patients with other diseases were turned away from hospitals during the lockdown, resulting in a large number of uncounted deaths. Holding tens of millions of people in conditions akin to solitary confinement exposes China to a massive mental health crisis with a stretched health care system (8.9 mental health workers per 100,000 in China) workers, compared with an average of 20.6 mental health workers per 100,000 people in upper-middle-income countries).

Neither authoritarian nor “democratic” capitalist governments can effectively fight Covid-19. The Xi regime has said that opposing Xi’s zero line is tantamount to doing nothing or “laying flat”. This is by no means a socialist view. The effective fight against Covid-19 requires strong independent workers' organizations and full democratic rights.

It is necessary to raise public awareness through mass propaganda, and it is also necessary to revoke the CCP's import ban on mRNA vaccines - because mRNA vaccines are much more effective in preventing epidemics than domestic vaccines, especially for the elderly. Any emergency restrictive measures should be democratically decided by the democratic grass-roots committee.

Universal unemployment and health insurance need to be established as a step towards a decent welfare system for all workers.

China's healthcare system needs massive investment and upgrades, strong independent healthcare unions and democratic working-class control. Socialist measures are needed to take over the wealth of the capitalists and implement the planned economy democratically. And all this requires ending the dictatorship and establishing a fully democratic, working-class-led society.