Chinese vignettes | Covid cases are soaring in China, so is its inflation

New Delhi, India

Horrifying videos of Shanghai residents screaming from their windows over stringent lockdown have been doing rounds on Twitter-like Weibo. Chinese netizens are now exposing the torture and grief behind China’s zero-Covid policy.

Covid rules-related pushback has also brought a wave of arrests and detentions. And amid the Covid-induced disruption of supply chains and the war in Ukraine, prices of commodities are also increasing. This week, in Chinese Vignettes we cover all the top stories making news in China.

Rising Covid Cases and Growing Frustration  

China’s largest city Shanghai sees no respite in Covid-19 cases as it enters the third week of lockdown. It continues to set daily records not just in asymptomatic cases, but also the symptomatic cases have increased manifolds. On Saturday, Shanghai reported a record of 3,590 symptomatic cases.

During the week, many horrifying videos of residents screaming from the windows emerged on social media. And the situation in Shanghai is so disquieting that even official Chinese government propaganda machines such as Global Times have started highlighting the public discontent.  

On Friday, the state-run Global Times reported, “Current difficulties of Shanghai exposed that the city's lack of preparation for the Omicron outbreak, policy flip-flops, loopholes in community management and a "lower-guard" mentality among officials due to fatigue in fighting the epidemic.”

“Problems exposed by Shanghai are also the problems needed to be tackled by other parts of China when the country has to stick to its dynamic zero-COVID strategy amid Omicron, but the strategy needs to be more specific and scientific,” it added.

Additionally, the Covid-rule backlash by residents has also brought a wave of arrests and detentions. In March, according to a Reuters report, the police registered more than 600 cases and 150 confirmed arrests as reported on Weibo, compared to 59 cases and 26 arrests in January.

This week, while Shanghai has allowed some residents to step outside their homes, and resumed some production at important manufacturing sites after a 16-day citywide lockdown, President Xi Jinping during a recent trip said that the country must stick to its zero-Covid policy approach and “prevention and control work cannot be relaxed.”  

US authorises 'voluntary departure' of staff from Shanghai  

The US State Department on Monday, according to a statement on its website “ordered” the departure of all non-emergency consulate employees and their families to leave Shanghai "due to a surge in Covid-19 cases and the impact of restrictions related to (China's) response."  

China’s “zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19 severely impacts travel and access to public services,” the travel advisory said.  

Also read | US authorises 'voluntary departure' of non-essential personnel from Shanghai

The notice came just days after the department had authorised the “voluntary departure” of staff, adding that Americans should “reconsider travel” to China due to its “arbitrary enforcement of local laws and Covid-19 related restrictions” including "the risk of parents and children being separated."

Beijing was quick to lash out at Washington for issuing the advisory and ordering its consulate staff to leave the city of 26 million, accusing the United States of “weaponizing” the issue.

Inflation in China

Earlier this week, business leaders warned that the ongoing lockdown in China’s financial hub could disrupt the country’s economy.  

On Monday, according to data released, China’s consumer prices saw a slight rise last month amid public concerns over food shortages, noted the South China Morning Post.  

The price of essential food commodities such as flour, edible vegetable oil, fresh vegetables and eggs slightly rose as they were “affected by the rise in international prices of wheat, corn and soybeans and the domestic [coronavirus] outbreaks,” reported the South China Morning Post quoting a senior NBS statistician Dong Lijuan.  

While the price of fresh fruits and aquatic products saw a much bigger increase of 4.3 per cent and 4.2 per cent respectively.  

The auto industry on the other hand reported a plunge of 11.7 per cent in car sales as many automakers had to suspend production in their Shanghai and Jilin factories including Tesla and Volkswagen.

Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer and auto segment, said on the social media platform WeChat that "If Shanghai continues being unable to resume work and production, from May, all tech and industrial players involving the Shanghai supply chain will completely shut down, especially the auto industry!"  

However, after having received the go-ahead from the officials on Sunday, Tesla and other carmakers are preparing to resume production at their Shanghai plant on April 18th.

 Diplomatic Buzz in Taiwan

There was a diplomatic buzz in Taiwan as it welcomed officials from the United States and Sweden this week.  

First to arrive were the Swedish parliament delegation who landed on April 10th for a five-day visit to enhance the bilateral relationship between Sweden and Taiwan.  

Before the visit, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan claimed in a Facebook post that the Swedish delegation had been pressured by the Chinese embassy in Sweden to cancel the trip, but this only strengthened their will to visit Taipei. "We hope the visit will strengthen friendly ties between Taiwan, Sweden, and the EU," reported Taiwan News quoting the ministry.

Also read | China puts pressure on nations to not recognise Taiwan as a country: Foreign Minister Joseph Wu tells WION

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen warmly welcomed the group, and in a virtual meeting said that she hopes to promote deeper exchanges with the European Union and build a democratic alliance. Calling Taiwan and Sweden like-minded partners, she added “in the face of the continuing expansion of authoritarianism, democratic partners around the globe must unite to defend their way of life.”

“It’s our duty to stand with Taiwan and defend its freedom and its democratic values by all means,” said Boriana Aberg, head of the Swedish-Taiwanese parliamentarian friendship group, noting the constant threats and provocations by Beijing towards Taipei in the last few weeks as well as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Next to touchdown in Taipei were the US officials. A delegation of six high-ranking US lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Friday. Sen. Lindsey Graham who led the delegation tweeted that the people of Taiwan are “great allies of the United States” and called Taiwan “a beacon of freedom in a troubled region.”  

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said the delegation would “exchange views with our officials on various issues of importance to Taiwan-U.S. relations.”  

During a meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen in Taipei, Graham said that China will pay a heavy price for bullying Taiwan.

“Here is my promise to you and the Taiwanese people: We are going to start making China pay a greater price for what they are doing all over the world... the support for Putin must come with a price. The never-ending cyberattack on your economy and people by the Communist Chinese needs to come with a price,” he said

The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian denounced the visit, saying “China is firmly opposed to any form of official exchanges between the US and Taiwan.”

“Relevant US lawmakers should abide by the one-China policy upheld by the US government. The US should … stop official contacts with Taiwan, and avoid going further down the dangerous path.... we will continue to take strong measures to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity,” he added.

As the visit by the US lawmakers was underway, China’s military also announced that it had conducted multi-force “joint patrol readiness combat” drills in and around Taiwan and the East China Sea on Friday.  

“This operation is conducted targeting the recent wrong signals the US sent on the Taiwan question... the wicked tactics of the US are useless and dangerous. Those who play with fire will burn themselves.” the PLA command said in the statement.  

The announcement was made while the US lawmakers were holding a press conference in Taipei.  

Meanwhile, this week, Taiwan also issued its first war survival handbook on civil defence amid rising threats from China. According to Reuters, the book gives people ‘survival guidance in a war scenario as Russia's invasion of Ukraine focuses attention on how the island should respond to China's pressure.’

The handbook details include ‘how to find bomb shelters via smartphone apps, and water and food supplies, as well as offers tips for preparing emergency first-aid kits,’ to enable safety preparedness, reported Reuters.

"(We) are providing information on how Taiwanese should react in a military crisis and possible disasters to come," said Liu Tai-yi, an official of the All-out Defence Mobilisation unit, during a news conference.