China masses take Covid-19 fight into own hands

BEIJING - Left to fend for herself after China abruptly ended the world’s strictest Covid-19 restrictions, Ms Share Xue and her daughter found themselves with 40 deg C fevers and an expired bottle of Motrin, a painkiller.  

“I didn’t think it would be that difficult to get drugs,” said the 31-year-old from Guangzhou, recalling how she had expected the government to take charge and give out medicine during her illness in December.

With

hospitals overwhelmed,

she turned to social media instead – and found an app on WeChat facilitating donations to those in need. 

About an hour after detailing her situation, a stranger called, offering two free Covid-19 test kits. Thirty minutes later, a woman who had just recovered from Covid-19 said she could send two ibuprofen pills. 

“This is the first time I really felt the warmth of people helping one another,” Ms Xue said. “I will teach my child to do the same.”

For the 1.4 billion Chinese citizens that had the government dictate their movements since the Covid-19 pandemic began, the past six weeks have forced them to suddenly figure out how to survive on their own.

President Xi Jinping had asked the public at the beginning of 2023 to “make an extra effort to pull through” the coronavirus wave and state media urged people to “take primary responsibility for their own health”.

On Wednesday, ahead of Chinese New Year, Mr Xi acknowledged the current outbreak had been “fierce” while noting “dawn is just ahead”. He called on local officials in rural areas in particular to improve medical care and protect the people’s health. 

But for the many who suffered through Covid-19 with no help, those calls ring hollow.

The traumatic experiences risk upending the social contract that underpins the Communist Party’s legitimacy: An acceptance of one-party rule in return for competent governance that keeps people safe and improves their lives.

Instead, citizens are now gaining real-world experience in effectively living without the party.

“Frustrated citizens feel that they have been jerked 180 degrees from tightly patrolled zero-Covid society to fending for themselves in a viral jungle,” said Associate Professor Diana Fu from the University of Toronto. “It has become evident that people are serving the people, not the party serving the people.”  

Chaos initially broke out

after China’s dramatic U-turn on zero-Covid,

which came swiftly after spontaneous anti-lockdown protests. People

scrambled to get medicine,

hospitals overflowed with infected patients and

crematoriums became overwhelmed with bodies.

The government released national guidance on self-quarantine and treatment, and some local authorities handed out medicine to the elderly.

But officials failed to provide much clarity on Covid-19 data or mobilise national resources to ease shortages.

As the authorities dragged their feet on an effective Covid-19 response, grassroots groups and companies have rolled out initiatives coordinating medicine supplies, offering health advice, providing data on the healthcare situation and reaching out to often-neglected rural areas.

The WeChat app for medicine donation had several million visits and over 800,000 posts immediately after its Dec 19 launch.

The Campaign To Bring Down Fever In Villages, an online initiative to collect donated ibuprofen, said it had mailed drugs to about 13,000 elderly residents in 110 villages as at Dec 29 after family members signed them up via a Weibo post.

NCP Relief, a grassroots group founded during the initial Wuhan outbreak, provides data on hospital bed availability in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai.

“The government was very present during the zero-Covid phase – now that people are getting infected, it’s not being helpful,” said Assistant Professor Hanzhang Liu from Pitzer College, who specialises in Chinese politics. “It’s a very bad look. I don’t think this episode has done any favours for the government in terms of public support.”

After cases appeared to peak in some parts of China, the state has in recent days moved to more actively address the resource crunch, supplying each village clinic with two oximeters financed by Alibaba Group and each town hospital with one oxygen concentrator.

The government vowed on Monday to “optimise disbursement of fiscal funds” and to set up a dedicated channel to expedite official purchases of Covid-19 and other medical goods.

The resurgence of civil society has come despite an earlier crackdown from Mr Xi, who has long feared that grassroots organisations could turn rogue and start pressing the government for political demands.

Shortly after he took power in 2013, Mr Xi declared civil society a danger to the party-state, along with Western democracy and media freedom. 

The flurry of grassroots action is reminiscent of the initial Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan, when the state roped in the public to supply medical resources and funds. But this time, local bodies are leading the way as the government has taken a step back, said Mr Bertram Lang, a research associate in political science at Goethe University Frankfurt.

“This kind of spontaneity is definitely worth noting,” he said. “From the government’s perspective, being spontaneous is inherently dangerous.”

State media has prominently featured stories of ordinary people helping one another. People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, carried a report of a man in Shandong province delivering medicines to more than 1,000 people on its official account on the Twitter-style Weibo, while Xinhua News Agency ran a commentary celebrating “the heartwarming forces of mutual help and encouragement” with instances of tip-sharing and medicine redistribution. 

But people are not impressed. Under the People’s Daily post, the top comment asked: “Shouldn’t you reflect on why the citizens are helping each other out?” 

Ms Jiangguo, a student in Beijing, began volunteering for a grassroots organisation dedicated to Covid-19 relief efforts once the situation became dire. She calls up hospitals in the capital to check if they have free beds, then feeds the information into an online spreadsheet maintained by the group.

Like many of her peers, she is questioning the government’s response – reflecting a wider loss of confidence in the Communist Party that could have consequences for years to come.

“It was just too quick and too sudden,” Ms Jiangguo said of the abrupt U-turn in Covid-19 controls. “...which inevitably makes me think, why didn’t the government tell the public in advance to let us prepare first?” BLOOMBERG