Xian's Covid-19 chaos exposes dark side of China's top-down governing approach

Almost two years ago, the Chinese government locked down Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million people where the first cases of Covid-19 were reported, after an initial period of mishandling and cover-up by the local officials.

The unprecedented 76-day lockdown from January 23 to April 8, 2020, played a pivotal role in the government's relentless campaign to bring the coronavirus pandemic under control in the country, making China the world's only major economy to report growth that year.

Since then, China's ability to control the spread of the virus has become increasingly sophisticated and targeted, with a range of measures including mass testing, quarantines, restricted travel, border closures and snap lockdowns, aided by a national electronic health database and a pervasive public surveillance system for contact-tracing. In addition, about 90 per cent of the country's 1.4 billion people have been vaccinated with at least two jabs.

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China's earlier success at containing the pandemic prompted Beijing to extol its authoritarian style of leadership, which it said had saved lives, as compared with Western democracies, which have struggled with soaring cases and death tolls.

So when cases spiked and the Chinese authorities on December 23 decided to lock down Xian, the capital city of Shaanxi province - marking the second time a metropolis of more than 10 million people came under a complete lockdown - one would have thought officials had learnt enough lessons and made sufficient preparations to minimise any disruptions.

Instead, stories of anguish and dysfunction from Xian have emerged, triggering disbelief and shock across the country, with many reminded of the chaotic early days of the lockdown in Wuhan.

In one of the most harrowing tales, an eight-month pregnant woman suffered a miscarriage after being made to wait for hours in the bitter cold on New Year's Day, because a hospital had demanded she produce a negative Covid-19 test.

A 39-year-old man also died of a heart attack on New Year's Eve after his calls to an emergency hotline failed to go through, and three hospitals later denied him entry even though he had obtained a negative Covid-19 test.

Those two extreme examples in Xian are part of a multitude of reports about sick children or adults prevented from receiving medical support. Posts shared widely on Chinese social media have also showed hungry people swapping food supplies or trading cigarettes for instant noodles and cabbage.

In response to the wave of traumatic stories, Xian officials resorted to the time-honoured tactics of treating them as isolated incidents and scapegoating lower-level bureaucrats. They also turned attention to the daily new virus cases, which fell to a single digit on Thursday, and indicated they were ready to relax measures and allow life to gradually return to normal after more than 20 days of lockdown.

A shift in national focus, meanwhile, has likely come as a relief to Xian officials, with the northern municipality of Tianjin under a partial lockdown after more than 100 people were confirmed to be infected with the highly contagious Omicron variant, marking the first community spread of the strain in China.

Tianjin's proximity to Beijing - 30 minutes by high-speed train and less than two hours by car - has raised considerable concerns about the capital city's lines of defence against Omicron ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday and the Winter Olympics in February.

Elsewhere, some cities in the central province of Henan, including its capital of Zhengzhou, are also under partial lockdowns because of a handful of cases.

But even as national attention may be diverted elsewhere, Xian and Shaanxi's municipal and provincial officials should not be let off the hook so easily.

While they may claim their whatever-it-takes and one-size-fits-all approach are effective and in line with China's zero-Covid policy, the tragedies suggest officials in Xian have lacked common sense and human empathy when pushing for the implementation of strict anti-virus measures.

Given the backlash, the online censors have limited discussions of what went horribly wrong in Xian.

Still, some people have pinned the blame on the complacency of local officials. The city in September hosted the 14th National Games, where tens of thousands of athletes converged in Xian without a hitch.

Others have suggested that local authorities were incompetent and mismanaged the situation. After a community outbreak was first reported on December 9, officials fumbled on contact-tracing efforts then panicked by imposing a citywide lockdown.

In the first few days of lockdown, Xian authorities allowed one member from each household to go out for groceries every two days. But they stopped that policy days later on December 27, ordering everyone except control officers to stay home. The local government organised food supplies for residents, but these were woefully inadequate, particularly after all commercial delivery services were suspended.

As people flooded social media with complaints about the food shortage in Xian, a video of a young man beaten up by control officers for leaving home to buy a bag of steamed buns in the early days of the lockdown triggered widespread online anger.

Meanwhile, city officials have blamed the grass roots operators for their own mismanagement and incompetence. Authorities on Thursday announced a three-month suspension for two hospitals that refused to see at-risk patients, including the pregnant woman who lost her baby.

Is it wise to close hospitals at a time when Xian residents have real challenges in accessing medical services? That question seems to have slipped the minds of Xian officials as they try to deflect the blame on institutions that were adhering to the strict control measures imposed by the city's authorities.

But more importantly, the dysfunction in Xian has exposed the dark side of China's top-down governing approach. The Communist Party's leadership now demands absolute loyalty from its over 90 million party members, and they are required to carry out instructions to the letter. This has led to lethargy at all levels of the Chinese bureaucracy, in which lower-ranking officials will only do what their superiors ask for, leaving very little room for different opinions and flexibility.

It is interesting to note that two days after the pregnant woman's tragic plight came to light, Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan, China's top official in charge of the pandemic controls, said she felt "deeply ashamed" about the patients who were denied medical services.

Only after her comments were reported did it prompt top provincial and municipal officials in Shaanxi and Xian to vow that patients in serious or critical conditions would be treated immediately with or without a negative Covid-19 test result.

Still, top officials in Shaanxi and Xian must be held accountable over the human and social costs of their incompetence and mismanagement. A comprehensive and serious reflection is very much necessary to prevent the tragedies and chaos in Xian from happening again.

Wang Xiangwei is a former editor-in-chief of the South China Morning Post. He is now based in Beijing as editorial adviser to the paper

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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