The Covid Protests in China and Why They Happened Now

Joe Weisenthal (0:10)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:17)

So Tracy, obviously a lot of the images and videos that we've seen out of China over the last week, I mean, I think it's safe to say they're pretty extraordinary.

Tracy Alloway (0:26)

Absolutely incredible. So I remember, I guess it might have been a month or two ago, someone posted a sign in Beijing that was critical of the party leadership and the Covid restrictions, and that alone had like, you know, just reams of ink spilled over this one sign that managed to be put up in Beijing and it stayed there for a little while. But now we have these protests that have erupted in a number of Chinese cities everywhere from Beijing to Shanghai and other places where people are marching in the streets, they're holding up multiple signs.

And the extraordinary thing is that this has been allowed to happen at all.

Joe Weisenthal (1:08)

Allowed to happen and also the people in many of these cases are almost certainly taking huge personal risks. There have been some videos of people calling for Xi Jinping to resign. And my understanding of China is that that is the type of public comment that could get one in very serious legal jeopardy.

Tracy Alloway (1:29)

Absolutely. So this is a fascinating moment in Chinese history. It's a fascinating moment from an economic perspective as well, because of course, China is the world's second biggest economy. It has had a number of quite stringent Covid related restrictions over the past three years or so. And unlike other countries, it hasn't really eased up all that much. And so we're seeing this groundswell of populist anger and a lot of criticism over the way the party and specifically Xi Jinping has actually handled this whole situation.

Joe Weisenthal (2:03)

Right. I mean, we're coming on almost three years now of Covid Zero. I first heard of Covid in December, 2019 Here we are. We're recording this episode November 28th. So it's coming out in December, 2022

And this is an extraordinary long time to have life disrupted in a very extreme way. Of course, the tightness of the lockdowns has sort of waxed and waned at times, but it's pretty extreme. In many cases, the efforts to contain Covid have been quite draconian. And as you say, the economic situation was already not that great. Growth is poor. Earlier this year, we talked about a lot of the problems facing the real estate industry.

We also, of course, recently had the Party Congress. So an extraordinary moment for China in general right now.

Tracy Alloway (2:55)

Yeah, and since you mentioned the Party Congress, you know, I think there was an expectation that maybe after this big political event was out of the way after all the attention that had been turned on Xi Jinping, basically securing leadership for life, that after that had passed, maybe some things would start to change. Maybe some of the restrictions would be eased up a bit. That doesn't seem to have happened. And so, well, there have been some other things that have happened in the interim, including a fire in Arumchi, where people have criticized the government as having, you know, because of the Covid restrictions on this building, people were unable to escape. And I think 10 people were reported to have died in that fire.

That's the thing that sort of sparked all of this, but it is, as you say, the result of three years of major, major disruptions to people's lives.

Joe Weisenthal (3:48)

Right, and you mentioned, you know, there may have been, some people might have thought, okay, after the party Congress, then the government can ease up, perhaps, on Covid restrictions. But, you know, we talked about this with Dan Wong, there is still the sort of brutal math for China of limited healthcare capacity, limited hospital beds, limited success in mass vaccination, and opening up means a lot more people will die, and when the government has sort of made a point about the success it's had in containing Covid, particularly compared to the rest of the world, that is a choice the government doesn't want to make.

Tracy Alloway (4:25)

Well, I mean, the term painting yourself into a corner kind of springs to mind, and of course, the big question is, what can China do now?

It's tied a lot of its political legitimacy to keeping people alive, which means you have to have these Covid restrictions, so what can it do in the face of mass unrest? So, we really do have the perfect guest to talk about this today.