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COVID has reshaped the world and China holds a unique position in the world’s approach to combatting pandemics and in the fact that it was first described in the city of Wuhan. We may never know exactly where or how COVID originated in China but we can be certain that the unprecedented strategy to ‘lockdown’ was one that originated in China.
The Lockdown
Before when the COVID pandemic was just a regional epidemic in China, the CCP embarked upon a zero-COVID policy where they took extreme measures of shutting down their economy. As an authoritarian government they were able to use extreme measures to prevent the movement of people. This was accomplished by sealing citizens in buildings and delivering essential goods (sometimes) with very harsh penalties if people tried to escape.
How is the Lockdown Going?
Jennifer Zeng is familiar with the CCP as one who has escaped a political prison to the United States where she now reports on the Chinese government. And that government’s zero COVID policies seem to be taking their toll on their citizens as they are well into the third year of rolling severe restrictions. Protests are occurring all over the country and unlike the Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989 they aren’t isolated in just one city. The CCP is faced with troubling questions as to whether it can really trust the military? Would easing the restrictions embolden people and lead to increased calls for freedoms?
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