Will CCP’s 20th Congress Mark the End of China’s Zero-COVID? (Part 2 of 2)

No, unfortunately. Aside from obvious constraints, because it also violates the law of physics in Chinese politics.

This article is the second half of a two-part series on China’s zero-COVID. In the first part, I already talked about the pragmatic limitations preventing Chinese leaders to ditch its zero-COVID policy. In this second half, I will demonstrate how this reveals the law of physics in Chinese politics.

Countries with similar constraints to China have also opened up. Why China cannot?

That is true. China is the single country that opts for such an extreme policy to contain COVID. (North Korea is arguably another, but that country is more like “Zero-everything” than just “Zero-COVID”.)

One can blame this on China’s governance system, that it is not a liberal democracy. But this argument is irrelevant because most other countries, including many undemocratic ones, have opened up or significantly relaxed their COVID restrictions.

China’s stern stance on COVID revealed something unique about China’s political arrangement. In short, this is because China has an “infinite liability social contract,” in contrast to Western democracies’ “limited liability social contract.”

A typical democratic government is analogous to a fixed term, “best effort” contract, where the two ends are the governed and the elected politicians. The contract gets renewed periodically through popular elections. Politicians make their “best effort” to deliver their contract, but if they fail, the worst case is usually losing their offices. Free press and free speech are critical to such societies because they assure the legitimacy of power through the free exchange of ideas.

In an “infinite liability government,” the governed give up a portion of their personal freedom; in return, the government takes on a “parental” role, assuming both more power AND more liabilities than what a democratic government. In China’s case, the contract has no finite term, and the governed have much higher expectations of their government than what they would in a democratic system. In this system, the governing group has much more to lose if they fail. Indeed, when the social contract falters, the regime will be toppled by unrest, which entails grave consequences for politicians.

Under this type of social contract, a government can be (although not always) more efficient than a democratic one. Albeit lacking political competition, the grave consequences of failure make the governing group paranoid and spur them on to be efficient and responsive. This aspect inspired me to create the meme below:

China’s unique social contract: the most misunderstood aspect of Chinese politics.

The threshold of unrest is high, and the politicians enjoy a great level of discretion before they cross the threshold. Nonetheless, such an arrangement makes politicians wary of potential unrest. Naturally, to quest the possibility of unrest, politicians have every incentive to cater to the interests of the vast majority, sometimes at the expense of the small minority.

A typical fallacy of China pundits is equating what voices they hear to the aggregate public opinion of China. The country’s demographic structure means that certain groups, typically the middle-class urban residents in affluent areas, enjoy a disproportionate voice in the public space, while the less well-off make up the “tacit majority”—farmers, low-skill workers, and residents in the lower-tier cities. Once opened up, this “tacit majority” will be hit the hardest, despite owning the lowest voice.

Imagine a situation where China opens up without adequate preparation. Many people, especially among the “tacit majority,” will lose their loved ones. The dissatisfaction with the regime will grow, potentially crossing the bar of unrest.

This time, it is the residents of the big cities that shouldered the most incremental impact from recent “Zero-COVID” lockdowns. They are often healthy enough, wealthy enough, and live in areas with abundant medical resources. For them, the new COVID variant is no more dangerous than the flu, and not worth the hassles of lockdowns. It is extraordinary because the small minority group that is forced to “take the bullet” this time, unlike prior times, happens to be the group with the most resources and the loudest voice.

Before open-up: 5 things must happen

In the long run, the country will just have to open, although it will take a while. Thus, it is more helpful to talk about what are the conditions or precursurs of China’s open up.

1. Small-scale experiments. Hong Kong has been chosen as a test field to refine China’s responses before a nationwide open-up. Hong Kong is not a perfect micro replica of China, of course, but the semi-autonomous city provides the best compromise for now. It is conveniently isolated from the mainland, with the same ethnicity and some inhabitants are inoculated with the same vaccines as Mainland China.

2. The research and development of more effective vaccines and drugs to the new variants. This preparation is underway – in the minutes of late July’s Politburo meeting, this agenda was explicitly made a priority. Given the concise nature of the minutes, this signals that development are accelerating for the updated version of updated COVID vaccines and drugs.

3. A sufficiently high vaccination rate among the most vulnerable groups. From March to July, the vaccination rate of 80-yo-plus seniors completing the three-dose regime has grown from just under 20% to almost 40%, a roughly 20% increase over a four-month span. At this rate, reaching an 80% level roughly takes another 8 months, pointing to the March or April 2023 timeframe.

4. The government needs to build more hospitals to accommodate the expected influx of COVID patients. Although not picked up by the news, this wave of new hospital constructions has already taken place. Indeed, the pandemic gave hospitals convenient excuses to expand. These new hospitals are often designed to be multi-purpose, many of them consisting of modules that can be readily converted into infectious-disease hospitals.

5. Increased frequency of PCR tests with a more robust network of PRC labs. This sounds counter-intuitive, but only the combination of massive PCR tests and regional lockdowns can throttle the spread the COVID to an acceptable level.

So you see, China will not open up soon

China cannot open up not only because of the obvious constraints. Most fundamentally, opening up now actually defies the law of physics that dominates Chinese politics. China’s unique social contract makes it follow a completely different trajectory compared to Western politics, and this is the most misunderstood aspect of Chinese politics.

When China starts the open-up, it will be a prolonged process, potentially longer beyond our reasonable imagination. After reading my articles, don’t feel obligated to agree with the Chinese government’s policy. But hopefully, I have shared some overlooked perspectives for you to form a more wholesome picture, and that will help you make better plans accordingly.

I found Churchill to be untimely suitable to describe China’s COVID journey, for he said: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”