In Shanghai, recently, an octogenarian told his neighbourhood committee member that he ran out of food and medicine and asked the member to help. The member, instead of helping, expressed his despair. “I am really helpless,” he conceded and said “I’m more sad than you are, because you are just one person. I see countless families.” The old man took pity on the committee member and ended up reassuring him.
Such stories are now common in Shanghai, which has witnessed draconian lockdowns for months. Although other countries throughout the world are focusing on treating cases and not letting them rise, China wants to eradicate COVID-19. Furthermore, China, under an insecure Xi Jinping, has been cracking down on private enterprises. This has put the Chinese economy under a lot of stress.
International investors who once saw China as a lucrative economy are now viewing it as a very “risky bet.” Due to the gloomy forecast of the Chinese economy, thanks largely to Xi Jin Ping’s COVID eradication strategy, overseas investors offloaded “more than $150bn in China-based yuan-denominated assets in the first quarter of this year, the largest decline on record. Chinese bonds alone saw a $61bn sell-off between February and May. Roughly $300bn could exit the country this year, more than double last year’s outflow of $129bn,” according to forecasts by the Washington-based Institute of International Finance.
Furthermore, China is now facing its external debt crisis. Much of it is caused because Chinese state-owned banks, which financed large unfeasible infrastructure projects, are now under extreme duress. A “Financial Times examination of the financial health of the Belt and Road Initiative — once hailed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping as the “project of the century” — has uncovered a mountain of non-performing loans.”
The lockdowns, a great source of inconvenience, are also giving rise to protests. And the Chinese are finding innovative methods of protesting. One of them includes using propaganda hashtags to talk about the lockdown. A few weeks ago, the Chinese government put a hashtag page on the Chinese social media platform Weibo that says the United States is the worst country in the world when it comes to human rights. Shanghai citizens used the hashtag to criticise the Chinese government instead of criticising the US, which is what the state government wanted.
They used another phrase called “call me by your name,” insinuating that the US in the hashtag should be replaced with China. Call Me By Your Name (2017) is an LGBTQ+ movie made in the US. It was banned in China but reached classic cult status among the citizens despite that. After some time, the government banned the hashtag they created, and the phrase call me by your name.
Citizens then shifted to another American movie – La La Land (2016). They were planning to shift to Don’t Look Up (2021). Fans of these films complained that they couldn’t talk about the films because they were banned. In other words, the citizens were saying “don’t look up” favourite US films because it’ll be filled with protests. Maybe that could be the way don’t look up is used. For protest of course.
One Weibo user wrote, “Yeah we seal people’s doors, kill pets, waste medical resources so patients with more urgent needs miss the opportunities to be treated, but our death number is zero!” Another user was pretty bold and said, “China is the most human rights deprived and authoritarian country in the world.” One user was touched because of solidarity. “So many posts to like. This is the true voice of the people. Let’s commemorate tonight…Maybe tomorrow it’s gonna be songs and dances again, but at least we know that we are awake.”
This continued for at least four to five hours. The censors not saying anything for such a long time was quite suspicious. Until the censors struck down, they deleted posts at a rapid pace once the people were done venting. That did not stop the people. They moved to another propagandist hashtag called “Shanghai handled rumours regarding COVID.”
This one was a bit more mellow and was filled with sarcasm. One Weibo user wrote, “US retracted that hashtag so quickly. No wonder they are so good at cyber warfare. China baby can’t compete. It’s all America’s fault. I’m so angry!” All of these posts belong to frustrated people who cannot and will not take the lockdown restrictions anymore. The Shanghai rumours hashtag was not taken down immediately because the words used weren’t as strong as in the other hashtag.
But at the end of the day, Weibo is still a social media website and does not have much impact. It may be a “public space” as Elon Musk refers to Twitter, yet the whole incident happened at night when most people were asleep. The people who post such things at most have their accounts suspended, and they create new accounts. Moreover, such posts are bound to go as they come. Thus the Chinese are going the other way – offline protests.
People began to scream outside their homes, asking the government to take away the lockdown. One woman screamed, “I want back my freedom!” Others are banging pots and pans, so they are heard loud and clear. They could not step outside of their apartments and be naturally worried. The only time they were allowed from their homes was when they had to be evacuated to disinfect houses. They also had to leave their pets behind, and that is what “killing pets” in the earlier Weibo post refers to.
You might think that all this hard work by the government might be decreasing the cases. It isn’t. The cases are increasing. Beijing now fears a Shanghai-style situation because there, too, the cases are high. People are stocking up as much as possible, so they don’t face the fate of their fellow Shanghai comrades.
All hope is not yet lost for the Shanghai citizens; even though their screams are falling on deaf ears, celebrities are trying to reach out to people and give them food. Chinese celebrities like Wang Yibo, Zhao Liying, Zhang Yixing, and Xiao Zhan donated whatever they could for the people. It may not be much, but it is honest work, not to mention that celebrity culture in South Korea and China includes donating from time to time.
Regardless, the people are still suffering. COVID cases are still rising. The economy is crashing. The Chinese government’s new banned phrase is the first line of their national anthem, which is “Stand up! Those who refuse to be slaves!” Tomorrow there will be some other phrases that the government will ban. In the meantime, Chinese people will find new phrases, scream at the top of their lungs, and protest as much as they are allowed to. The government can’t ignore their cries for long.
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