As China reopens, online finger-pointing shows a widening gulf

China doctors battle covid surge (Image: AFP)

A furious, wide-ranging argument is unfolding on the internet in China over the reversal of the government’s strict pandemic policies and the massive COVID surge that followed. The divisions are challenging the Communist Party’s efforts to control the narrative around its pandemic pivot.

Since the party abandoned “zero-COVID” last month, many online commenters have staked out opposing positions over seemingly all manner of questions. Who should be blamed for the explosion of cases and deaths? Is a top government-appointed health expert trustworthy? Is omicron really less severe, as Chinese officials now say, when hospitals seem to be filling up with sick patients? They are even arguing over whether people should be allowed to set off fireworks during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, after many did so during the New Year.

The digital finger-pointing reveals a country that is deeply polarized, with each side distrustful and skeptical of the other — and, to varying degrees, of the party and its proxies. In some cases, the party’s own supporters are indirectly questioning its decisions, complicating efforts by the party’s censors and propaganda outlets to push its messaging.

“The sudden 180-degree turn from ‘zero-COVID’ has precipitated a new crisis for which the government needs to explain to the people,” said Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College who studies Chinese politics.

The party now needs to contain COVID infections, rescue an economy dragged down by its “zero-COVID” policy, and repair the damage to its image caused by the chaotic reopening, Pei said.

If Beijing moves too hard to quash discord, it could further alienate many who had long defended “zero-COVID” and who have been confused or disappointed by the sudden policy U-turn. But if it lets the arguments escalate, it risks muddying its message and seeding more uncertainty.

“It’s very damaging for Chinese society if society is divided into very antagonistic groups — who are equally powerless, equally helpless — and they accuse each other,” said Xiang Biao, a Germany-based expert on social issues in China.

By far, the more vocal side is made up of those who supported “zero-COVID” — a mix of nationalist online influencers, conservative academics, and a number of trolls. Some saw the stringent policy as necessary to save lives in a country where medical services are uneven. Others adopted the party’s argument that “zero-COVID” was a measure of China’s superior political model.

Some voices in the so-called “zero-COVID faction” have sought to blame the protesters opposed to lockdowns for the current outbreak and rising deaths, even though the virus had been spreading wildly before the policy U-turn. They call those who supported the end of “zero-COVID” “tangfei,” or “lying flat bandits,” an insulting variation of “lying flat,” a term used to refer to a slacker lifestyle that had earlier been co-opted by Chinese state media to criticize Western approaches to coexisting with COVID.

Implied in some of the criticism is that by undoing “zero-COVID,” the party has empowered its detractors at home and in the West, and weakened its position even among its own loyalists. For a time, online influencers such as Sima Nan, a nationalist, even took to denigrating government-appointed experts such as Zhang Wenhong, a top epidemiologist in Shanghai who had argued against excessive lockdowns, suggesting that Zhang had misled the public about the severity of omicron. The vitriol was so great that state media outlets soon called for such personal attacks to stop.

On the other side are those who have welcomed the resumption of school, work, business and travel as not merely a relief from lockdowns but as a much-needed retreat by the Communist Party from everyday life. Many identify themselves as part of the “opening up” or “lift lockdowns” faction associated with the university students, migrant workers, residents and small-business owners who protested against “zero-COVID” in November.

Even Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, made a rare acknowledgment of the public disagreements, saying in a New Year’s address: “It is only natural for different people to have different concerns or hold different views on the same issue.”

He emphasized, though, that he expected Chinese people to fall in line, and to “think in one direction, work in one direction. The strength of tomorrow’s China comes from unity,” he said.

For much of the past three years, Xi had brooked no opposition, brandishing the “zero-COVID” policy as proof of the authoritarian party’s superiority in protecting people over that of chaotic Western democracies. Now, along with a mounting public health crisis, authorities find themselves having to rein in their own usual defenders, those who had helped prop up “zero-COVID” as the only way forward.

Some see the opposition to reopening as mostly posturing by online personalities interested in attracting more followers, and predict that the anger will blow over once outbreaks peak and pass, and the economy recovers.

To Wu Qiang, an independent political analyst in Beijing, the online backlash is a sign of a deeper challenge to Beijing. Xi’s New Year address, he said, was a “rare recognition that he is facing objections, criticism and dissatisfaction inside and outside the party.”

At the same time, Wu said, Xi’s “zero-COVID” policy of top-down control pushed people to question the party’s authoritarian approach, fanning a new political fervor that could, over time, gain momentum.

“In some ways, if you look at things from the vantage point of the future, the current ‘lying flat’ faction is a broad foundation for a future Chinese opposition party,” Wu said.

If there is one issue that both sides seem to agree on, it is that the government is hurting its credibility by not providing reliable data on the extent of COVID outbreaks and deaths across the country. The official death toll is widely ridiculed on Chinese social media as absurdly low. The World Health Organization and several countries have urged Beijing to share more data on hospitalizations and deaths. The information vacuum has fueled speculation by influencers and bloggers who have pushed their own conclusions and conspiracies around the policy pivot.

A key factor in the mutual infighting was the “collapse of public trust,” said Xiang, who is also the director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany. “Government data, policies and experts’ opinion lost credibility.”

(Author: Chang Che, Claire Fu and Amy Chang Chien)/(c.2021 The New York Times Company)