![]() Having tied himself so closely to zero-Covid, Xi was stuck in a trap of his own making. VCG/Visual China Group/Getty ImagesĪs the party’s all-important national congress approached, the pressure only grew. Other local governments came away with the lesson that they must curb infections at all cost, before outbreaks spiraled out of control.Ĭovid workers disinfect a residential community under lockdown in Shanghai in April. Rather, officials hailed it as a victory in the war against Covid. China’s GDP shrunk by 2.6% in the three months ending in June, while youth unemployment hit a record high of nearly 20%.īut the costly lockdown did not prod China to shift away from its zero-tolerance approach. The lockdown also wracked havoc on the economy. The draconian measures triggered wave after wave of outcry, severely eroding public trust in the Shanghai government. In the country’s wealthiest and most glamorous city, residents were subject to widespread food shortages, lack of emergency medical care, spartan makeshift isolation facilities and forced disinfection of their homes. The two-month lockdown became a glaring symbol of the economic and social costs of zero-Covid. Local officials initially denied a citywide lockdown was necessary, but then imposed one after the city reported 3,500 daily infections. The financial hub of Shanghai soon became the epicenter. By mid-March, China was battling its worst Covid outbreak since the initial wave of the pandemic, reporting thousands of new cases a day, from northern Jilin province to Guangdong in the south. Thomas Peter/reutersīut it didn’t take long for Omicron to seep through the cracks of zero-Covid. In the lead-up to the Games, these measures worked in January to tame the country’s first Omicron outbreak in Tianjin, a port city near Beijing.īeijing kept the Winter Olympcis largely free of Covid inside a strictly managed bubble. It also boosted China’s confidence that its well-honed zero-Covid playbook of lockdowns, quarantines, mass testing and contact tracing could build an effective defense against highly transmissible Omicron and contain its spread. The success added to the party’s narrative that its political system is superior to those of Western democracies in handling the pandemic – a message Xi had repeatedly driven home as he prepared for a third term in power. ![]() Any infected visitors arriving in the country were swiftly identified and their cases contained, allowing the Winter Olympics to run largely free of Covid even as the Omicron variant raged around the world. In its tightly sealed, meticulously managed Olympic bubble, the ubiquitous face masks, endless spraying of disinfectant and rigorous daily testing paid-off. The Games proved to be a resounding success for China’s zero-Covid strategy. Over the span of a year, Xi’s hallmark pandemic policy has turned from a source of legitimacy for the ruling Communist Party into a spiraling crisis that threatens to undermine it.Īs an unprecedented wave of infections – and deaths – sweeps the country, many have questioned why after sacrificing so much under zero-Covid and waiting for so long to reopen, the government ultimately let the virus rip through a population with little prior warning or preparation.Īs 2022 draws to a close, CNN looks back at five key events of the year for China’s zero-Covid policy. The chaos and disarray is a stark contrast to the start of the year, when Beijing showcased the success of its Covid containment measures by keeping the coronavirus largely at bay from the Winter Olympics. ![]() ![]() Instead, China had its most difficult year under Xi’s rule as it reeled from his costly zero-Covid policy – from months of overzealous enforcement that crushed the economy and stoked historic public discontent, to a wholesale abandonment so abrupt that left a fragile health system scrambling to cope with an explosion of cases. 2022 was supposed to be a triumphant year for China and its leader Xi Jinping, as he began his second decade in power with a pledge to restore the nation to greatness.
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