Spiked- China has tested lockdown to destruction

Now it’s finally over. China’s testing booths are being dismantled. In Beijing you will no longer need to show a negative PCR test on your smartphone to enter the supermarket, catch the bus or exercise in the park. In Shandong province you won’t need one to buy cough drops – once a marker of suspicion that your family might have Covid. Those who do catch Covid may be allowed to self-isolate at home instead of being carted to the quarantine centre. It’s unclear how complete the relaxation will be. But what is now certain is that the viral genie cannot be squeezed back into its bottle.

But wait there’s more…

China first. Given how long and how zealously Zero Covid was pursued in China, one can only conclude that President Xi and the CCP genuinely believed in their strategy. Zero Covid wasn’t a bluff to fool other nations into adopting catastrophic policies. Rather, it was expected to demonstrate the CCP’s superiority over the virus-riddled world beyond the Middle Kingdom. Xi’s conference address supports this interpretation. As does the lack of contingency planning for its failure. Let me stress, this is about the CCP and Xi, not China itself. The CCP owns this failure. Many decent Chinese doctors and scientists have long disapproved of Zero Covid, but they know it is unwise to criticise the emperor openly.

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