Chinese people ‘frustrated’ over lockdowns, admits Xi
China’s president says it could be time to ease the harsh zero-covid policies as Omicron less lethal
XI JINPING has admitted that Chinese people are “frustrated” with Covid lockdowns and suggested measures could be loosened because the Omicron variant is less lethal.
In private talks with Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, in Beijing, the Chinese President said the rise of Omicron could allow China to ease its zero-covid policies, according to senior officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
China has already begun to loosen some restrictions, with cities across the country allowing businesses to reopen, ending requirements for daily PCR testing and allowing some Covid patients to quarantine at home.
Discontent with China’s hardline pandemic response spilled onto the streets last weekend, with some protesters calling for Mr Xi and his government to resign. China’s vast security apparatus has moved swiftly to stamp out the dissent, deploying a heavy police presence while boosting online censorship and surveillance.
President Xi told Mr Michel that the demonstrators were “mainly students or teenagers in university” fed up with the restrictions, the officials said.
The government has largely stayed quiet about the protests, which have grown into the most direct challenge to the ruling Chinese Communist Party since the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.
Yesterday, Hu Xijin, the former editor of China’s Global Times, a Communist Party mouthpiece, said he was prepared to accept the risks posed by the Omicron variant for the sake of the country’s “colourful youth”.
It was a further sign that attitudes towards controlling the virus have shifted among the Chinese political elite and came after Sun Chunlan, China’s vice-premier, said the Omicron variant was weakening and vaccination rates were improving.
A central figure behind Beijing’s pandemic response, Ms Sun, on Wednesday said the “new situation” facing China required “new tasks”. According to the European officials, Mr Michel suggested to Mr Xi that China follow the example of Europe and favour vaccination drives rather than lockdowns to control the spread of the disease.
A number of cities have now begun easing restrictions, slowly moving away from daily mass testing and compulsory central quarantine – a tedious mainstay of life under zero-covid policy.
But sporadic localised clashes have continued to flare up. Videos shared widely on social media showed the parents of pupils at a school in central China on their knees, begging for their children to be let out of a Covid quarantine centre.