While Western governments have relented (for now) on the COVID-19 lockdowns instituted ostensibly to “stop the spread” but in reality designed to pilot a digital social control grid, the Chinese Communist Party has pursued, and doubled down on, a “Zero COVID” policy.
And the compliant Chinese population largely went along for the ride, until seemingly very recently. As anyone who has lived in East Asia, as I have, can attest, Asian culture is totally antithetical to the Western preoccupation with individual liberty.
These are highly collectivized societies whose populations are trained to defer to authority at all times without exception. While this premium on authority and rigid hierarchy has its benefits (it certainly makes commanding respect in the classroom as a teacher easier), it also comes at the cost of a groupthink hive mind where critical thought is tossed out the window.
Related: Chinese ‘Zero-COVID’ Hell: The Bleakness in the East
Enslaving the population in mental, and often literal, prisons becomes much easier for authoritarian regimes like the CCP. This is the result.
40 days into extreme lockdown measures in Shanghai. People bang pots & pans from their windows, and balconies.
Isolation, starvation, deprived of their pets,
no medical attention for pre-existing conditions, Suicide is not uncommon. pic.twitter.com/9Q5BL24nc0— SanctimoniousMonk (@AmeliaAiredale) April 29, 2022
Last week, the Politburo Standing Committee doubled down on the Zero COVID strategy, which includes mandatory testing multiple times per day, travel restrictions, forced isolation, closures of all manner of businesses, mandatory relocation to quarantine camps, and more.
Alas, it looks as if the dam may finally be breaking. Via Fortune:
Chinese citizens are taking an unusually vocal stand against officials as the pandemic has trudged on and residents’ freedom has remained at the mercy of the virus.
As China’s draconian measures have ebbed and flowed, residents have been seen protesting, attacking health officials enforcing the shutdowns, and screaming from the windows of the apartments in which they’ve been trapped.
广州一孕妇即将生产，被封控在家不让出去，结果死亡，一尸两命 …… pic.twitter.com/ZTKwwmHQI3
— 李 庆 (@LQ0068) November 14, 2022
(Internet translation: A pregnant woman in Guangzhou was about to give birth, but was locked down at home and did not let her go out, and as a result, she died, one corpse and two lives ……)
#VamosALaFilven2022
¿Rechazo de la política COVID Zero? | Durante las últimas 48 horas, los grupos chinos de redes sociales están informando sobre disturbios y protestas masivas en Guangzhou, China continental, el corazón de la región cantonesa de Guangdong pic.twitter.com/rPm20kMz50— Chavista0101 (@Chavista0101) November 14, 2022
(Internet translation: #VamosALaFilven2022 Rejection of the COVID Zero policy? | For the past 48 hours, Chinese social media groups are reporting on riots and mass protests in Guangzhou, mainland China, the heart of the Guangdong Cantonese region.)
🇨🇳🔥 — More videos of the rejection of the COVID Zero Policy, In the last 48 hours, riots and mass protests in #Guangzhou, mainland #China, in the heart of the Cantonese region of $Guangdong controlled by the #PRC. pic.twitter.com/zlTw7reLJb
— The informant (@theinformantofc) November 14, 2022
NEW – People in China's Guangzhou city tear down COVID barricades.pic.twitter.com/M28Rw63APC
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) November 14, 2022
Of course, the CCP enjoys tighter control — assisted by its technetronic surveillance grid literally named Skynet — than arguably any other state, so it’s not a given that mass-scale protests of any size will be sufficient to reverse the Zero COVID insanity.
But it’s heartening, at least, to see the average Chinese push back on their psychopathic masters.
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