Allan WongandDong Lei

Opinion | Why politicise China’s zero-Covid protests when it’s just Covid fatigue?

The protesters do not represent the majority, who want to protect the vulnerable elderly, even as Beijing hesitates to import mRNA vaccines amid geopolitical heat

The rest of the world should help, not inflame sentiment, while China must refine its feedback systems – something Hong Kong also needs to improve on

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Allan WongandDong Lei

Published: 3:30am, 2 Dec 2022Updated: 3:39am, 2 Dec 2022

Over the weekend, there were protests in several major cities in China over Covid-19 restrictions. In response, some commentators including the “China doomsday” prophet Gordon Chang are again predicting the beginning of the end for Communist Party rule, while others such as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in his first major foreign policy speech, cited the protest crackdowns as evidence of Beijing’s challenge to Western values.

The protests in China are reactions of Covid-19 restriction fatigue, which has affected many other nations in recent years. Other countries similarly deployed police to quell the protests, with Canada famously “debanking” truckers protesting last February. Yet when China takes milder actions, the response and the narrative change.

Here, conclusions have led facts, occasionally supported by imagination. An old Beijing saying speaks of “one’s backside governing one’s head”, describing a person’s views being shaped by individual circumstance and outlook.

To combat this impulse, American philosopher John Rawls recommended that decisions be made impartially from fundamental principles, behind a “veil of ignorance”.

China’s response to Covid-19 is deeply rooted in its history and developmental stage. Firstly, China’s vast regional developmental disparities affect health care, education and culture. Students in its international cities such as Shanghai, for example, grow up absorbing international popular culture, with remarkably open high-school textbooks.

But rural China still maintains a starkly different outlook. Reverence for elders and filial piety have epitomised Chinese civilisation for three millennia, and those values remain strongly held by a majority that these protesters do not represent.