The Strange Idiocy of China’s COVID Response

Beijing surrenders to the virus.

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People receive medical attention in a hospital in Shanghai, on December 23, 2022 (Photo by Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images.)

The way this newsletter normally works is that I, the sage author, offer answers to political questions of the moment. Or theories.

Or a hot take or two, as is most often the case.

But I have no solutions to today’s mystery. In fact, I’m hoping readers more knowledgeable about China than I am might use some of their extra downtime this holiday weekend to enlighten me in the comments.

Here’s the mystery: The Chinese Communist Party’s COVID policy makes no sense. It hasn’t made sense in awhile but it makes less sense now that they’ve completely reversed themselves without warning or, seemingly, preparation. They’ve replaced an insanely draconian restrictions regime with an insanely dangerous laissez-faire approach to the virus.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    “or it could have stuck with “Zero COVID” indefinitely and hoped for the best.”

    No, they couldn’t have. That’s why they abandoned it.

    “ One theory is that he did it to teach the critics of “Zero COVID” a lesson.”

    That’s my take.

    Overall, you seem a little too sympathetic to the Zero COVID approach for my tastes, Nick. I happen to think the Great Barrington Declaration was smarter than pretty much everything else we tried. If anything, the situation in China proves what has always been true: vaccines and Paxlovid are essentially the only thing that actually made any bit of difference. Lockdowns either don’t work, or you have to practically shoot people to keep them in their homes (a la China) and even then it only holds things off for so long, and then your dam breaks and you’re back to square one (if you don’t have good vaccines) and a whole bunch of people die. Which was inevitable without vaccines, even with Zero COVID you just delayed the inevitable.

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  2. DRJ

    Mike Pompeo thinks China lifted its quarantine to reinfect the world with Covid.

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    Matmos

    This knowledgeable article goes into detail about why China did not vaccinate older people effectively, and why they have not released their own mRNA vaccine. https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-in-china-and-global-concern This was before the turnabout. Update re the latest situation can be found here: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-in-china-the-us-and-everything

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    Gustavsson_john

    Hi Nick,

    I have a theory on this: China's demographics are terrible. Decades of one-child policy was always going to come back to haunt them.

    Most of those who die from COVID-19 are elderly. Killing off a chunk of elderly can save China a lot of money, and save resources for lone children who otherwise would have to provide for two parents on just one income.

    Will it work? I don't know. Will it backfire? Probably.

    But I think that could be at least a big part of the reason. After all, China simply has too many old people. Why would the government not want to cull a few?

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  5. Avatar photo
    Kurt

    Most Westerners are not at all familiar with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). All Westerners would be amazed at the number of Chinese that practice TCM; it's essentially everyone. There are TCM "pharmacies" most neighborhoods in Wuhan where I live/lived. Western medicine is relatively new in China, meaning only the last couple decades. The 1st tier cities have modern hospitals, but are WILDLY short on doctors and medical professional staff. 2nd tier cities like Wuhan, have a couple hospitals, they're building more, but an average day at a Wuhan hospital is like a very crowded and chaotic bus stop. By any Western standard for a health care system, there isn't one.

    Vaccines are like the anti-TCM. Vaccines run opposite of all TCM beliefs, i.e., health is managed by managing "Qi", the essential life force coursing through all of us. The idea is to balance Qi, and thereby achieve health. Vaccines are the sledgehammer that wildly disrupts Qi. People don't believe in them.

    I've got lots of friends and close family that were initially very leery of getting vaccinated. My Father in Law is still hesitant/resistant. My friends are largely university educated, some at Western institutions, that were very nervous about getting vaccinated. Now, it's sort of become a novelty and they're proud that they went for vaccination.

    The other stuff is political. Xi is written about as holding all the power. That's both true and not true. Whatever the coalition/structure is, most likely a combo of bloodlines, clan affiliations, family connections, families with great wealth connections, or whatever...there is a supporting structure under Xi. It's well understood that there has been major fighting behind the closed doors of Zhongnanhai. Major. There's lots of other power centers opposed to Xi; it's equally well known that big chunks of the CPC do NOT like Xi and want him gone. Yao Yang just penned a lengthy takedown of the entire 20th Congress, recently completed; he's the Dean of Development Studies at Peking University, no small position in the hierarchy.

    Xi has not a hint of intellectual capability, and is not well read. He understands repression and blunt force, which is the primary reason he's there. Everyone talks about Chinese politics as the Emperor having ultimate power, which is true, sort of. If one studies history as they should, they would understand that the position of Emperor is one of complicated compacts, allegiances, blood lines, and all the wacky power grabbing that goes along with such things. Xi was probably the guy pushing Zero Covid; it's about what he's capable of understanding. Saner minds prevailed, and in a flurry, the whole mess collapsed in on itself. Friends of mine in low level public employment in the health (health inspectors, administrators for testing, etc.) describe chaos. They dumped it and are starting from zero.

    As to what actually is going on, no one on the outside knows, but these are reasonably well informed WAG's.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Matmos

      Thank you so much for this informative analysis.

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  6. Roger.Chylla

    They thought zero covid was something they could continue indefinitely and discovered they could not. It's that simple. The weirdest part is not forcing everyone to become vaccinated. They forced everyone in their homes for 3 years and so why not force them to get a vaccine?

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    1. Avatar photo
      Kurt

      If you think the crazies here are anti-vaccine, you should know China, where vaccines are mysterious and mostly considered dangerous. Forcing a population that's been on TCM for the last couple thousand years to get jabbed is....I don't know what it is, but it's not something the mass line is going to favor.

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      1. Roger.Chylla

        Cultural issues are harder to discern from far and you certainly may be right. The idea of someone forcing me in my home for several months is the most authoritarian extreme measure I can imagine. It seems shocking to me that some might prefer to be locked in their homes versus taking a jab. If that really is the cultural mentality of their elderly, however, then why cannot the CCP just say that lockdowns are lifted for those who get the jab? If they want to tolerate their lockdown then let them tolerate it and let the sane people free with a vaccine. I don't see why that wasn't done a year earlier.

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          Kurt

          Good questions, but you're still trying to understand from a perspective that is wholly removed from the culture. Here's something to chew on... Even aspirin is looked at as odd and anti-TCM. I know lots of folks that think of aspirin as some mysterious medicine that could be dangerous.

          After that, it stopped being about medical issues a long time ago. This was political in all sorts of ways. There's lots of folks in China saying what you're saying, and they've been removed. Big Daddy doesn't give a shit about the economy or anything else; he understands repression and blunt force. He'd have been fine with the country in a perpetual state of testing and lockdown, the better to control every aspect of citizens lives.

          The ultimate power that all the dipshit Western commentariat talks about is bullshit; China has always been "ruled" by complex combinations of cliques, factions, and economic players tied together through family, blood lines, clans, economic allegiances, and all sorts of silly shit, and it's that way now, with the definitive factor being Xi controls the guns of the PLA and the Armed Police (there's multiple levels of police in China), figurative and literal. It really is that simple in many ways. There's lots of folks that know Xi is a lunatic, but what're they gonna do about it?

          Lots of Chinese are asking the same questions you're asking. That, in itself, is a sea change. I could go on, but won't. There's too much to talk about.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Brian Ruff

    I'm no expert, but I think your second theory is on to something. COVID disproportionately affects elderly and physically compromised individuals, and China's extended one child policy has created a society headed to more retirees than workers. Xi could be applying some brutal calculus that COVID is draining China of the weak and dependent. Per Stalin: Death solves all problems - no man, no problem.

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      Thomas Grimmer

      This had occurred to me. The Chinese population pyramid is a timebomb for economic decline.

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  8. Leeandjim

    My take is that the CCP fears one thing above all others. They fear a rolling nationwide protest to their rule. Local protests are tolerated but a threat to the CCP terrorizes them. Add to this the Chinese economy is in serious trouble with no solution in sight. Real estate sales fund the local governments and the local governments provide the basic services. The people bought real estate as their only source of safe and profitable savings. With the total collapse of the real estate market the people are angry and questioning. The covid protests could have become the tinder to set off a national firestormof grievances. The CCP saw this and simply panicked.

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  9. Gbm311

    International comparisons provide fascinating lessons. Sadly, the CCP has avoided the accounting and lesson learning that other countries have embraced. China likely represents the single population block with minimal immunity to the SARS-CoV2, either from natural immunity or effective vaccine. In this unique situation, we find out that Omicron actually does NOT lack virulence for the vulnerable. Because China is not transparent, we do not know the characteristics of the mass of the newly dead, but guess that it is the elderly. On top of that, because they were unprepared, China likely has no organized algorithm for diagnosis and treatment. Do they even have monoclonal antibodies or paxlovid? Early diagnosis and supportive treatment is vital. What is the ratio of ICU beds to the population? If the Chinese people ever knew how irresponsibly managed this inevitable pandemic would be, there would be an overwhelming movement to overthrow the government. The problem in China is that there is no heir apparent. The healthcare system as well was totally unprepared. There is a huge lesson of a blind totalitarian regime and its vulnerabilities in today's globalized world.

    In China, the reality is that a large % of the population likely had no natural or effective vaccine-conferred immunity due to the short-sightedness of the Chinese leaders.

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    1. Georges

      " In this unique situation, we find out that Omicron actually does NOT lack virulence for the vulnerable. "
      It is an interesting point. We continue to have covid related deaths in the US largely among the unvaccinated, presumably from the omicron variant. What is unknown is how many, if any, had any natural immunity from prior infection.

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      1. Gbm311

        This is a really important point that many miss. We see posts that the majority of individuals dying in certain populations in recent months have been vaccinated suggesting that the vaccines are no longer protective. In fact, this is not necessarily true. Let us take a city of 100,000 people. Ten thousand of the citizens are >75 years of age and 98% are vaccinated but many of these people are very old and have co-morbidities. Most of the unvaccinated people are < 50 years of age, many of whom have natural immunity. When a new omicron variant arrives, let us assume that 100% get infected. Only 0.1% of the 80,000 under 50 die which means 80. However, 3% of the 10,000 over 75 die which equals 300. They die with COVID but most die from underlying disease about which are death certificates are notoriously inaccurate. An analyst would conclude that the vaccine did not work. However, a sub analysis looks at the 2000 over 75 without vaccination or natural immunity and finds that 10% died of COVID which equals 200, strongly suggesting that the vaccine did protect many in the vaccinated group who did not die. We are unable to make conclusions unless we know in detail about natural immunity and the outcomes of those few remaining who had no natural or vaccine-conferred immunity.

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