Targeting and the anti-zero-COVID "A4 Movement"
Papering over differences? Plus RIP Jiang Zemin and a tiny bit of real estate
History does not seem like it is ending anytime soon, but it might be nice if it slowed down a bit.
This past week has seen a wave of protests in China that are fascinatingly different than what we’ve seen in recent decades. Bill Hurst wrote a viral thread on Twitter (that he then turned into a Monkey Cage post) analyzing these nuances (which has noticeably perked up with descriptions, photos, and videos of the demonstrations after approaching silence in the week before Thanksgiving).
There are many perspectives that can help shed some light on these protests.1 Lynette Ong wrote about how local structures of power are breaking under the weight of zero-COVID. Eli Friedman wrote about how the intense commodification of workers that has typified the country’s political economy in recent years has reached its zenith with “closed loop” practices that lock factory workers in place. And I wrote about how we should pay attention to the zero in zero-COVID as an example of the country’s deep reliance on quantified politics. From my piece:
Simmering anger at Beijing’s “zero covid” restrictions exploded over the past few days with protests in cities across the country. Chinese citizens have now sacrificed nearly three years of comfort, convenience and freedom to prioritize a single number — zero cases — and, ostensibly, public health. But a deadly fire in Urumqi exposed widespread frustrations with the repeat lockdowns, mandatory testing and ubiquitous surveillance.
Why that fire in particular sparked the wave remains a bit unknown. I speculated that there is a widespread resonance in Chinese cities that have suffered lockdowns to the idea that people will be sealed in their homes and never leave again. Having that literally happen killing at least ten people, and in Xinjiang which has suffered so greatly because of the broader detainment camps, pushed some people past a breaking point.
But beyond the quantification, the piece emphasizes that Xi’s neopolitical turn, which attempted to combat local corruption, pollution, and debt problems by wresting authority back to the center and to Xi himself removed political insulation for the regime. It’s harder to place all the blame for problems on local officials when the entire media environment is emphasizing the power of the central leader and giving him credit for all the good. It’s unsurprising that many are pointing out that the fish rots from the head.
To be clear, though, I think most people demonstrating in the streets (and even more grumbling at home) feel resentment about zero-COVID and that the anti-Xi / anti-CCP sentiments that have been expressed are quite rare. In some ways, this points at the benefits of and tensions with the “hold up a blank white paper” method of protest—thus the moniker “A4 Movement.” While initially I saw claims that the white paper was symbolic of death like paper money that is burnt at funerals, I think the more likely source is recent Hong Kong and Russia protests. In those cases, people just held up the blank sheet of paper because everyone understood what was at stake, what was being resisted, what was not allowed to be said. And I think in those cases there was more common knowledge and agreement on the key elements of the protest (anti-National Security Law and anti-Ukraine invasion, respectively).
But in Chinese cities and campuses, I think there’s a real divide between a majority who just want the uncertainty of lockdowns to end and a return to some kind of post-COVID normal and a more radical cohort who make the connection between zero-COVID and Xi’s increasingly hard authoritarianism, rejecting them both.
Peak Nerdiness
One of the revelations of this moment has been that the vaunted Chinese censorship apparatus has been overwhelmed by the vast quantity of people sharing content that the state would prefer to remain hidden. Many of the ways that this happens is by tweaking things so that algorithms can’t automatically identify the banned content. So, videos of videos, or tweaking characters/etc. In this vein, I humbly suggest the following as a move A4 activists can play in their cat-and-mouse game with the censors.
RIP, Jiang Zemin
The leader of the PRC’s third generation — Jiang Zemin — has died at 94. There’s a lot that one could say about Jiang’s life and reign. He’s at the heart of the growth narrative that I discuss in Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts, although he’s overshadowed a bit in both my book and Schell & Delury’s excellent Wealth and Power by his more quotable premier, Zhu Rongji (still alive at 94!).
As a Wallace, I have to include Jiang’s impressive interview with Mike Wallace for 60 Minutes back in 2000.
The Other Big Number
Finally, real estate. Just like at a New York City dinner party, in urban China, conversations will always come around to talking about property.
China’s economic malaise, as I’ve written elsewhere, is not just because of zero-COVID restrictions. The government is attempting to deflate a real estate bubble without destroying the household wealth of the middle class. Along with zero-COVID relaxations, economic supports to developers were the other prong of China’s pivot following the market flop coming out of the 20th Party Congress. Many speculators were excited that the money train was about to be backed up to builders and the old style stimulus through construction was returning. However, the funds have been much more limited than some hoped for, leading many to wonder where the sector, usually estimated at over a quarter of the country’s economy is headed.
The policies being put forward are insufficient to transform the sector completely, but will likely help the favored to consolidate their control.
This remains the market to watch if you are thinking about China’s economic future beyond the short-run. And even more if you’re thinking about the planet and climate change. More to come shortly.
Also just read new China books! Lynette’s Outsourcing Repression, Eli’s The Urbanization of People, and, of course, my Seeking Truth and Hiding Facts.
Yep, 96. And all apologies to Ware, but it’s not really getting a lot of play these days (for obvious reasons).
1. a4 already has a name: the Ware Opening.
Most sources show Jiang Zemin born Aug. 17, 1926, so died 96 rather than 94?? (Even the 60 Mins. item you include says 96.)