China’s Lockdowns Matter to the West
This is an edition of Up for Debate, a newsletter by Conor Friedersdorf. On Wednesdays, he rounds up timely conversations and solicits reader responses to one thought-provoking question. Soon after, he publishes some thoughtful replies. Sign up for the newsletter here.
Question of the Week
What worries you most about the direction of the country? And/or what makes you most optimistic about its future?
Email your thoughts to conor@theatlantic.com. I’ll publish a selection of correspondence in an upcoming newsletter.
Conversations of Note
Shanghai is under severe lockdown, and its residents are suffering from food shortages as China continues to pursue its “zero COVID” policy in the world’s third most populous city. In the Los Angeles Times, Liam Gowing, who teaches English in Shanghai, paints a dire portrait of life there, where fear is palpable amid near-daily mandatory COVID testing. Residents aren’t scared of the virus, but they dread the strategy that is being used to combat its spread, “implemented by placing anyone who tests positive, regardless of their condition, in centralized quarantine facilities.”
Gowing writes:
Before the government that separated COVID-positive children from their negative-testing parents, some families developed a tactic of their household using a single toothbrush to
