Shanghai, China’s most populous city, is a shadow of its former self. Nearly 25 million people have been strictly confined to their homes since the beginning of April in a bid to curb the explosion of cases of coronavirus infection, which has plunged the Chinese economic capital into disarray.
“I live near the second or third busiest highway in Shanghai, and if I see five cars passing by a minute, it’s good,” notes Pierre Morin, a Quebecer contacted in his Shanghai apartment.
His daily life resembles the confinement experienced in Quebec at the start of the pandemic, but the order to stay at home is relentless this time: a formal ban on leaving his apartment, except to go get tested. Pierre Morin says he feels “like a prisoner for life” as this new reality seems endless.
Xi Jinping’s party sticks to its strategy at all costs ” zero COVID”, an intransigence that has earned it great success in terms of health until very recently. The Omicron variant, sometimes blurring the results of rapid screening tests, however threatens to burst the health bubble in which the Middle Kingdom has locked itself.
After a month of ultra-strict confinement, the authorities offered timid relief. When all the residents of the same residential tower have been declared negative for seven consecutive days, they can then pass through their front door. However, they are only authorized to circulate within their district, the equivalent of a district of about fifty residential towers.
This exit right affects “nearly 50% of the people in my social network”, according to Pierre Morin, who claims to also benefit from this fragment of freedom.
But this progress hangs by a thread. All residents of the megalopolis will have to be declared negative for life to return to normal. A single positive case, and thousands of neighbors return to the “everyone at home” box. A discouraging reality that Normand Gauthier, a businessman contacted in Shanghai, must experience. “Thursday there was a new case in my community, so we are here for another two weeks at least. »
Shanghai authorities set up stations on Thursday evening to test residents on every street corner.
The specter of scarcity
The house arrest of 25 million people has not failed to disrupt supply chains.
Food shortages hit the city, especially at the start of confinement, before the authorities granted exceptional authorizations to allow delivery people to circulate. “One of my close friends must have eaten potato soup for a day or two, and then everything was back to normal,” says Pierre Morin.
During the second week of confinement, “I only had two days left of food, and two other days to eat anything”, indicates for his part Normand Gauthier. He claims to be now able to restock through orders placed on the Internet. Each time, it is a person dressed in an airtight suit who places the packets of food on his doorstep.
The links between this economic capital and the rest of the world also take it for their colds. Authorities claim the port — the largest on the planet — is operating normally. Several observers believe, however, that the delays are accumulating and that it is to be expected that exports will take ever longer.
“There are special permissions to run the factories. Employees sleep on the sites,” explains Pierre Morin, who works in the pharmaceutical sector. “It took me a week to find a new way to supply my warehouse. I now have a temporary warehouse outside of Shanghai. […] Our work pace is jerky. »
Unprecedented defiance
Very far from confinements like here, the Shanghainese were taken aback by a martial law that does not say its name.
Videos of revolts are circulating on the Chinese Web. In these images – quickly censored by government algorithms – we can see crowds brutalizing gendarmes who came to seal the doors of their homes with a weld. There are also scenes where hundreds of people cry out their hunger on their balconies, or bang on saucepans to be heard.
This is confirmed by another Quebecer, Anna-Lissa Raymond, also joined on the spot. “We had done [cadenasser] my main door, because people were going out in our parking lot when it was forbidden. Then someone came down and cut the metal latch with pliers,” she says. Mme Raymond, passionate about China since her first visit in 1995, believes that trust is broken between the Chinese people and their government. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a rebellion, this feeling of ‘no, I won’t accept that you remove our emergency exits’. […] It will mark China forever. For sure. I’m surprised even to say that. “.
Citizens of Shanghai use saucepans to make themselves heard by the authorities during their strict confinement. Source: Olivier Brault, expat in China. pic.twitter.com/hslXbrBa23
— Jean Louis Bordeleau (@JLBordeleau) April 28, 2022
“I’ve never seen a mistrust like that,” adds Olivier Brault, director of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai for eight years. “This is the first time I see Shanghainese criticizing their country. I haven’t seen this in 15 years. They feel invaded by Beijing, which has taken control of the management of the pandemic. On April 22, almost everyone I know posted videos decrying the situation on the Internet. »
Residents still have the option of leaving the megalopolis, but they may not be able to return until the lockdown ends.
“About 85% of expats are thinking of leaving the city,” says Mr. Brault, citing an informal survey of other international chambers of commerce. He himself will take the plane Monday in the direction of Montreal to escape confinement. “I’m leaving to come back. I believe in China and how it works,” he maintains.
This widespread shutdown seems to be slowly bearing fruit. The Ministry of Health identified 10,622 new positive cases on Thursday, the lowest total since early April. A Gavekal Dragonomics study published last week estimated that 57 of China’s 100 largest cities were experiencing a “relatively severe” form of lockdown, down from the previous week’s total of 66.
The bet to keep Omicron outside the walls of China is however far from won. A few days ago, the virus hit the tip of the spikes in Beijing. All schools in the city were closed on Thursday. The capital of 21 million inhabitants recorded 50 cases that day.