For the last three years, the Chinese people have endured sweeping COVID-19 restrictions. One hundred-day lockdowns were not uncommon. That's 100 days confined to an apartment, eating from plastic trays of food delivered to the door, and no physical contact with others outside the household.
Barricaded apartment blocks looked like scenes from a doomsday film. Anonymous figures in white protective suits enforced constant testing, and a single positive result could send thousands into quarantine. In some cases, even the pets of those who tested positive were killed. Young children were separated from their parents for days, ending up in gigantic halls where the system segregated the infected.
Safety through fear
Authorities justified the massive restrictions by pointing to the deadly danger posed by the virus. Unlike the supposedly decadent Western nations, the United States in particular, the regime implied that it actually cared about its citizens and could guarantee their safety. The strict zero-COVID policies were essential to preventing millions of deaths, it was said.
Early in the pandemic there was also talk in Germany about the best ways to combat the virus. There were advocates of a strict zero-COVID policy here, too. But by the time the Omicron variant arrived at the end of 2021, it was clear that such a policy would only delay the inevitable.
China's communist neighbor Vietnam, which had until then also pursued a zero-COVID policy, changed its policies to rely on vaccinations, and a wave of infections overtook the entire country. But today life in Vietnam is largely as it was before the pandemic.
Ideology over practicality
This is when China took its own unique path. With each passing month, the country moved closer to an impasse. The regime's actions were no longer primarily about fighting the pandemic, but about ideological goals: China wanted to prove the superiority of its own system above the rest of the world.
In the run-up to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party this October, at which President and party leader Xi Jinping, the father of the zero-COVID policy, was to be made ruler for life, no disturbance was tolerated.
Escapes and protests
The extent to which people had suffered under the Communist Party's coercive safety measures became clear when thousands of workers fled Foxconn's production halls as soon as a positive case was reported in November. They hoped to escape weeks or even months of isolation.
Then protests erupted in various cities after the party congress. Given the omnipresent surveillance and repression protesters would face, their participation showed how many had reached the limits of what they could tolerate.
The protests were quickly diffused. At no point did they threaten the system. More threatening may have been the growing reluctance of foreign investors to invest in China, however. A growing number of international companies have publicly flirted recently with the idea of withdrawing from business in China because of the harsh lockdown measures.
A radical change of course
What remains surprising and incomprehensible is how the Chinese state, which prides itself on its technocratic administration, has reacted. Virtually overnight, the COVID restrictions were lifted and the testing regimen was abolished — shifting the policies from one extreme to another.
If the Communist Party had ever cared about the safety of its citizens, it would have fostered a transitional period, initiated a comprehensive vaccination campaign, and strengthened the health care system. But none of that happened.
The most recent vaccination for many old and sick people, who in any case were only vaccinated with the less effective Sinovac agent, took place months ago. Pharmacies and hospitals are now completely overrun. The virus doesn't make exceptions. And experience gives rise to the fear that millions will become infected and tens of thousands could die.
Once forced into isolation by the regime, the Chinese people are now being left alone once again.
This article orginally appeared in German.