Front Burner - Protests and Xi Jinping’s zero-COVID dilemma

Episode Date: December 2, 2022

This fall, chaos broke out at the world’s biggest iPhone factory. The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou employs hundreds of thousands of workers. Nicknamed “iPhone City,” the factory is operating on a closed-loop system under China’s zero-COVID policy. That means its workers eat, sleep and live at the plant in what authorities say is an effort to prevent expensive lockdowns and avoid outbreaks. But in October, the virus got in. As the company clamped down to control the spread, videos surfaced online of workers scaling fences, streaming towards the exits and hitching rides to escape the factory. The chaos at iPhone City is just one example of the growing discontent over life in zero-COVID China, which has sparked widespread protests across the country. Today, Lily Kuo, the China bureau chief with the Washington Post, shares how the demonstrations are challenging China’s leadership in a way not seen since the Tiananmen protests in 1989. Then, Sue-Lin Wong takes us through what the protests say about President Xi Jinping’s grip on the country. She’s the host of the podcast, The Prince: Searching for Xi Jinping and The Economist’s China correspondent.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Last month at the world's biggest iPhone factory, something strange happened. Some employees at the Zhengzhou Foxconn plant physically escaped the building they were working in.

Why? Well, the factory is operating on a closed-loop system under China's zero-COVID policy. That means workers eat, sleep, and live at the factory. They're cut off from the outside world. Authorities say the policy is supposed to keep the economy humming by protecting workers from the virus and companies from expensive lockdowns. Well, in October, Foxconn had its own COVID outbreak. And suddenly, the plant's hundreds of thousands of workers found themselves locked in. Since October, the Foxconn plant has been sealed off from the outside world after a COVID outbreak that forced employees to live and work on site. And what videos obtained by CNN show are filthy conditions.

And while the company says the workers were free to leave if they chose to, video shows people climbing fences, flocking to the exits, hitching rides to escape. To keep up production at its busiest time of year, the factory hired replacements, promising hefty bonuses. But the factory's strict living conditions and pay delays have sparked clashes between workers and security guards. They're going to start beating us.

Protesters yelled in fear, facing off rows of law enforcement with riot gear. Workers tearing down COVID barriers, using metal beams against police. The news has been overshadowed by widespread protests across China. But it's all part of the same story of people who are so fed up with COVID lockdowns, they're willing to take drastic measures. My first guest today is Lily Kuo.

She's the China Bureau Chief with The Washington Post, and she's been reporting on the demonstrations across China and speaking with protesters. She joins me from Taipei. Hi, Lily. Thank you for coming on to FrontBurner. Hi, thanks so much for having me. So there's been discontent over the COVID measures in China for a while now, but the latest wave of protests came after an apartment building fire last Friday. And can you take me through what happened there? Yeah, so there was a fire in an apartment building in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, a region in sort of the far northwest of China. Videos of the fire

raised a lot of questions about whether COVID controls in Xinjiang have been some of the far northwest of China. Videos of the fire raised a lot of questions about whether COVID controls, COVID controls in Xinjiang have been some of the harshest anywhere in the country, whether these COVID controls had prevented people from being rescued or from being able to escape. State media claims that people in the compound were allowed to leave the building. However, videos show fire trucks unable to get close to the scene because the compound entrance was partially blocked. The video shows it's blocked with fences, tents, and metal barriers that are normally used as part of COVID measures. The videos of the fire showed fire trucks spraying water that didn't quite get to the building.

So a lot of people were asking, was it because of COVID restrictions on getting closer to the building that prevented the truck from getting closer or prevented the truck from getting there faster? And then also there were a lot of questions over whether the lockdown measures, which in a lot of cases have meant that people are locked, actually physically locked in their buildings or the doors are sealed, that people couldn't leave. And so the officials said in response that none of these were issues and that the reason why the fire trucks couldn't get closer was because of cars that were parked on the road and because of the narrow road. And they said that the people could leave.

But one official from the fire brigade said that the issue was that some residents, their ability to save themselves was too weak, so they weren't able to escape. And so this comment inspired a lot of anger, which is part of what set up protests the next night in Urumqi, which is very remarkable because Urumqi and Xinjiang in general is very tightly controlled, very tightly surveilled. So for there to be protests somewhere like this is also pretty unique. So for there to be protests and stuff like this is also pretty unique. Lived COVID lockdown is what this crowd in China's far western Xinjiang region is chanting after a deadly fire in a high-rise building triggered rare protests over the country's

prolonged COVID lockdown. Videos circulating on Chinese social media show residents in the region's capital, Yurumqi, arguing with guards in hazmat suits. How many people ended up dying in that fire? Ten people, including three children, but that's what officials said was the death count. Some people don't think that's the real number, but that's the official account. So just for our listeners, China has had this zero COVID policy since the pandemic began more than two years ago, right? And it has meant tighter border controls, aggressive PCR testing and lockdowns. It can be very unpredictable. You can be forced to lock down inside your apartment complex or your workplace at any moment, as you've just talked about. And there's also a digital component to the monitoring, right? Can you take me through that?

Right. So in China, everybody has to have a health code and to have a health code that shows green, which means you're good to go. If your health code turns red, then your life becomes much more difficult. And so, you know, in the best case scenario, the health code is just a nuisance, something that you need to constantly be aware of. And then at the worst, in the worst case scenario, the more extreme use of this digital monitoring is that there have been cases where, not related to this most recent wave of protests, but a group of people protesting a local bank, their health codes all suddenly turned red so that they couldn't travel and attend these protests. Yeah. What have people told you about what life is like under these zero COVID rules?

A really big turning point for public opinion about zero COVID was in April when the city of Shanghai was put under a very sudden and kind of full lockdown. 26 million people, by some measures the biggest city in the world, confined to their homes. But breaking through the silence, drone instructions. There have been desperate complaints of shortages of food, water and medicines, overburdened delivery networks and growing protests. At the time, we talked to a lot of people there about what things were like. And the stories ranged from people that had to watch their relatives die or their relatives pass away because they couldn't get to emergency health services fast enough because they couldn't

leave their compounds or whatever other restrictions to people that couldn't get enough food. And yeah, people just told us various stories of really being very miserable. So much of the world has moved on and has opened up. And why not China? Why are these lockdowns still so prominent? So China's zero COVID policy at the beginning was, you know, it was just a public health response. It was just a way to deal with the pandemic. And it became a propaganda win for the government because in the first year of the pandemic, China did get infections under control sooner than other countries.

And China really was proud of that. And so zero COVID and China's overall response to the pandemic domestically was, you know, this big propaganda win. While the global economy is dealing with the worst crisis since the Great Depression, these numbers show that China's economy is still growing. In fact, China is expected to be the only major country to post growth this year. While China was the first country to implement these strict lockdowns, it's also been early to reopen and get life back to normal. So the result of that policy is that infections in China have been pretty low compared to other countries. And also the death rate is also much lower than in other countries.

But the level of natural immunity among the population is also very low. And the vaccine rates among the elderly are not very high. So right now, China is in a situation where the Omicron variant is coming in and they have a big population of people that are very vulnerable to it. One, because they're not fully vaccinated. And two, because the vaccines that they have are domestic vaccines, which are less effective against the Omicron variant. Just to spend a bit more time on some of the incidents that have really fueled this anger. We talked about the Foxconn outbreak, which first started in October in the introduction. And you and I talked about the apartment fire, the apartment building fire.

There was also a bus accident in September where COVID restrictions were also blamed. And what happened there? Yeah, it's important to note that this fire is only the latest of an incident like this that really sparked a lot of public anger and a lot of questions and a lot of doubt about why these policies are in place and what the point of them really is. So in September, a bus carrying people to a quarantine center in the middle of the night, I think these were a group of people who were close contacts. So they weren't, they didn't, I don't think that they were infected. And in any case, this bus flipped over and 27 people died. There was another case more recently where a three-year-old who had gas poisoning at home, his parents weren't able to get

him to the hospital in time because of these restrictions. And the boy ended up dying. During the Shanghai lockdown, there was a nurse that was turned away from the emergency room at her own hospital while she was having an asthma attack and she died. So there's, you know, these cases and these incidents have just been building up and building up. And so that room she fired was, I guess, the, you know, the kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. And it's not like protests never happened in China. But if you could put this into context for me, how do these protests compare to other kinds of protests that we might normally see in the country? There are two things that are very different about these protests. And one is that among the things that people are calling for are freedom of press, freedom of speech, rule of law, human rights. In some cases, people even called for Xi Jinping, the leader of

China, and the Chinese Communist Party, the ruling party, to step down. And it's very rare for people, especially just regular citizens on the street in front of a row of police to yell something like that and to directly challenge the government. The second thing that is notable about the protests is that they spread and that they have learned from each other and copied each other and they're sort of building on each other. So there have been protests in China before, but as I said, they're usually very localized, specific to a particular place or an issue. But this time we saw protesters in the far southwest using the same methods and shouting the same things that they had shouted, you know, in the East, in Shanghai.

Shanghai! Shanghai! Or in Beijing, and that's something that's really different. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household

income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. Is it fair for me to say that we haven't seen protests this widespread since the student-led demonstrations for free speech, free press, for democracy in Tiananmen Square in 1989? Yes, that's right. We haven't seen protests like this since then. It's a very different surveillance and control environment. So I guess I don't know if I want to say that they won't continue, but they definitely are smaller than the Tiananmen ones. It's just that

China has been under such tight control since Tiananmen that, you know, we haven't seen anything like this. And that's why it is so remarkable. But, you know, kind of objectively, they're not as big as those protests were, but it was a very different world then. Okay. And are these protests getting violent? Are there clashes with police? Okay. And are these protests getting violent? Are there clashes with police? We talked to one protester in Shanghai who saw police dragging people and shoving them into cars. There have been videos of clashes between protesters and police and things getting more violent and protesters sort of throwing barricades and things like that. But I think for the most part, the police and the security forces have been a bit more hands off and have not cracked down in a very kind of visible and harsh way.

Why do you think that is? Well, so first, I think that this wave of protest caught the security services off guard. And second, I think that it serves them better if they stop the protests through less visible methods. So we've been talking to people that have been detained or brought in for questioning or stopped on the street and searched, had their phone searched and lawyers who've been getting calls from demonstrators or people who were near the protests or other protests about various situations where the police are bringing them in and warning them not to continue the protests. And so things like this intimidate people and, you know, pass on that message that, you know, it's you don't want to be going to these protests, but they're not so visible in a way that it would inspire more protests in response. Right. Lily, thank you so much for this. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. So we've heard how demonstrations across the country are challenging China's leadership in a way not seen since the Tiananmen protests in 1989. But President Xi Jinping's pursuit of control has been causing friction long before the pandemic. Su Lin Wang is The Economist's China correspondent. She also hosts the podcast The Prince, searching for Xi Jinping. She's here to take us through what the latest protests say about the president's leadership and his grip on the country. Su Lin, thank you so much for coming on to FrontBurner. Thanks, Jamie. It strikes me that these protests come just weeks after the CCP's National Congress,

where Xi Jinping consolidated his power as leader in a way that we haven't seen since Chairman Mao, if you think that's fair. And can you break that down for me compared to just a few years ago? What kind of power does Xi now have in China? Yeah, that's a great point. And that's why these protests are so extraordinary. So just a few weeks ago, we saw that Xi Jinping decided to stay on for a third term. And that's really unprecedented because in Chinese politics, the leader of the country has for the past several decades, traditionally done just 10 years, but Xi Jinping's 10 years were up in October and he decided to, you know, break convention and stay on for at least another

five years, but perhaps, you know, 10 more years, or perhaps even for the rest of his life. In his highly anticipated speech, Xi outlined his vision to make China the dominant global superpower, a plan that requires a robust Chinese military and continued enthusiastic support for the Communist Party, calling for expanded powers in social and economic development. And what we saw at the party congress just recently was that Xi Jinping promoted a bunch of loyalists who he has known for decades and has really centered the security state. So increasingly everything in China is driven by this notion of national security, which is, you know, very, very broadly defined and of course is defined by the Chinese Communist Party itself. Analysts have pointed to how China's definition

of national security covers a wide range of issues, from ensuring supply chains to securing food supplies, as well as its maritime claims, like in the South China Sea. It also includes areas that China considers its core interests, like Hong Kong and Taiwan. So that is the context for what we're now seeing, you know, on the streets in China. Yeah. And even before these protests, and I guess even before COVID, under Xi, how have people's daily lives and freedoms changed since he's been in power since 2012? Over the past 10 years, China has become a much less free, a much more authoritarian place. And you can see that impact the lives of ordinary Chinese in all kinds of ways. Whether it's that you're a kid in primary school and you have to study Xi Jinping thought in your textbooks now

in a way that you didn't say 10 years ago, or if you're just an ordinary office worker and you have to go to discussions about communist party ideology during your lunch breaks. We've seen a ramp up of the censorship machine, the propaganda machine, the surveillance machine. Journalists have really had to learn how to tow the party line. The party has crushed all kinds of human rights lawyers and activists and religious groups like Christians. So over the past 10 years, we've seen a really, really dramatic shift towards a much more authoritarian China. So then in that context, can you explain these latest protests to me? Like, why are they even able to happen? And why are they happening? Right. So given that the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping has built these very, very sophisticated censorship and propaganda and surveillance machines that

are all really enabled by high tech, you know, algorithms and AI, there were many people who thought that never again would there be protests across multiple cities all coalescing on a single issue, which is why what we've seen over the past few days is just so remarkable. We've seen these protests break out in many major cities, but also in smaller Chinese cities. They're all about people's anger about this zero COVID policy that has been in place since 2020. What is important to note is that there were hundreds of people on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai, perhaps thousands, but that means that there were maybe tens of thousands of people protesting around the country. The context for this is China has 1.4 billion people. So while these protests are very,

very extraordinary, it's important to bear in mind that it was tens of thousands of people protesting in a country of 1.4 billion people. And the party has a lot of tools in its toolkit to crack down on this kind of dissent. And we've actually seen that, you know, over the past few days. So even though there were these extraordinary protests over the weekend, you know, since Monday, we've seen police out in force. We've seen sort of leaders and particularly outspoken protesters being disappeared, being rounded up, being detained. We've seen police erect barricades along main streets in Shanghai and

Beijing where protests did break out over the weekend. And the censorship machine and the surveillance machine are really kicking in. And I think we can expect further repression in the coming days. When you talk about the censorship regime and the surveillance regime really kicking in, can you just give me an example of what you mean by that? So in China, when people try to share information online, you know, whether it's tweets or Chinese equivalent of tweets since Twitter is blocked or videos or photos, often those videos and photos and messages are very, very rapidly removed by censors. And, you know, that's what we've been seeing in China over the past few days. Although, actually, what is interesting is that there are some videos that are still

getting through. So there's so much information, so much frustration, anger that the censors can't completely keep up just yet. Another really interesting aspect of the protests over the past weekend was that people started holding up blank sheets on paper. They might be getting ahead of themselves, but those who like to name revolutions seem to label what's happening in China

the white paper revolution. In a place where protesting can be deadly, white pages beckon people to simply fill in the blank, if you will, anger about lack of freedoms or economic struggles cries for the end of the rule of Xi Jinping, and they infuriate authorities. And that was a direct protest against repression of freedom of speech.

And so, you know, the statement was, we can't even write a slogan, we can't even write our demands on this piece of paper, but what we are going to do is protest against the lack of speech we have here and the lack of a freedom of press or our lack of rights by just holding up these blank sheets of paper. And so even blank sheets of paper were being censored on the Chinese internet. So, Lynn, I get that the coalescing issue here is the zero COVID policies and what they've done to people's lives. But are these protests, have they just been about COVID? You know, like, are they about other things too? Yeah, that's a great question. And, you know, it gets to the heart of why covering China is

so difficult, you know, partially because it's very, very hard to get access to the protesters and the protesters are spread out. And as a journalist, you have to really think about how to protect your sources on the ground in China because the ramifications for them can be so extreme and they can end up in jail or worse things than that. And so the first thing I would say is it's very, very hard to know for sure what is driving every single protest across the country. I think broadly, it is anger at zero COVID, but there's a wide range of reasons people might be angry, whether it's that they're angry at their local neighborhood committees that are locking them in their apartments, or they're angry at the fact that, you know, for years, China has had this zero COVID policy, but that we've also seen a minority of protests

call for the downfall of the Chinese Communist Party. And they've been shouting slogans like down with Xi Jinping. What I would say is that that is definitely not what every single protester across the country has been calling for. But we definitely heard those slogans over the weekend from a very, very brave minority of protesters. That is really, really remarkable given the price that you pay in China if you call for something like that. We've been talking about this consolidated power that Xi Jinping has amassed and also the fact that the government is really cracking down on these protests. Are these protests in any way a threat to his power? No, I think Xi Jinping's power is secure for now, for a couple of reasons. So the protests don't

have a single leader, and they're not united. You know, they're not all linked up. So all the different protests in, say, Beijing and Shanghai and smaller Chinese cities are not directly coordinating with each other. And I think, you know, if you look at Chinese history, the moments of real danger for the Chinese Communist Party is when there is an elite rupture at the very, very top. So say a top party leader had decided that they were completely fed up with Xi Jinping and they were able to form an alliance with the Chinese military and launch some kind of coup against Xi Jinping and bring hundreds of thousands of ordinary Chinese people along with them.

That would be when I would say Xi Jinping's power was not secure. But we have absolutely no evidence that that is going on. There is no evidence there's any kind of elite rupture. In fact, it seems to be the opposite, given that Xi Jinping has just promoted a bunch of his loyalists who have very, very deep ties with the security state. So for now, I would say that Xi Jinping's power is secure. I understand the former Chinese president died on Wednesday night. And might that have any effect on these protests? Yeah. So Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese leader, passed away from leukemia on Wednesday, or at least the official announcement came out on Wednesday.

And this comes at an incredibly fragile moment for the party, given these protests that we haven't seen in decades. So we're going to have to watch and see what happens over the next few days. One thing I would note is that people have been paying tribute to him on the Chinese internet in a very nostalgic way. And so, he's seen now as the symbol of a much freer, open China, even though in reality, his legacy is far more complex than that. But I think a lot of people are seeing him in contrast to Xi Jinping, who is seen as much more authoritarian and sort of brutal and has taken China in a direction that is far less free. Is there any scenario in here where the government actually decides to loosen up on these COVID restrictions? I think that's the biggest question that anyone who's following China these days is asking. What is the endgame? How does zero COVID end? When does it end? And the reality is that the Chinese Communist Party under Xi Jinping

faces a really, really nasty dilemma because it's clear that there is a lot of unhappiness and frustration in China right now about this policy. And COVID itself is spreading rapidly across the country. And one of the techniques the party used to try to defuse these protests was that they encouraged university students to go home for their holidays early. And, you know, they were organizing free buses to take students to airports and train stations. But another thing that the students are going to take home is COVID. party is really playing a short-term game to try to break up these protests over the next week or so and could be really, really paying the price for the next several months if COVID does really spread across the country. So, you know, on the one hand, it seems like the discontent is growing. But on the other hand, if China were to open up right now, the reality is in a worst case scenario, millions of people

could die. The hospital system could become overwhelmed. China has far fewer hospital beds than many other countries and also far fewer doctors. So all of this could also just result in a very, very tragic outcome and could also fuel discontent given that people in China have had for years to live under this zero COVID regime. If the party were to suddenly say it's over, you know, not only could many, many people die, but also there could be a lot of frustration of, you know, why did we just sacrifice the past few years if the result in the end is the same. Yeah. And I would imagine, too, I'm no political strategist, but might there be like a symbolic problem with doing that as well? I'm not sure this regime would want to let protesters know that they could win or they could gain any ground by protesting,

be it COVID or anything else? Yeah, so the Chinese Communist Party will traditionally try to spin things so that it looks like it's all about the party, you know, looking out for the interests of the people. And this was, you know, solely a decision of the party if they were to loosen up COVID restrictions. And the reason they're able to do this is because they have such powerful propaganda and censorship machines. So the messaging would not be like, we are responding to protesters' demands. The messaging would be, oh, COVID is not as dangerous as it used to be. And under the glorious leadership of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, we are now slowly starting to shift our COVID policy. But, you know, this is all for your own good and all because the party is wise and has sort of seen the light. So I think,

you know, we have to pay very close attention to the propaganda and whether or not we see any kind of shifts and any kind of signals that suggest that there is going to be a move away from zero COVID. Okay, Su Lin, thank you so much for this. This was really, really fascinating. Thank you. Thanks so much, Jamie. So before we go today, some major cities across China started to announce they're easing COVID restrictions. Some are loosening testing requirements and controls on movement. Others have reopened markets and bus services.

Beijing has reportedly even begun changing its quarantine rules. One of the main pandemic response officials has also downplayed the threat of Omicron this week, saying the country is entering a new phase in its COVID fight. Meanwhile, there are reports of a heavy police presence on the streets, with officers randomly checking people's phones and no signs of protests. We'll keep watching this story, but that is all for today. FrontBurner was produced this week by Shannon Higgins, Imogen Burchard, Lauren Donnelly, Rafferty Baker, Derek VanderWijk, and Allie Janes.

Our sound design was by Mackenzie Cameron and Sam McNulty. Our music is by Joseph Schabison. Our executive producer is Nick McKay-Blocos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you on Monday.