Priority to the economy. Almost three years after placing the country under glass in the name of the zero Covid policy, China is abandoning this strategy. Twice a year, the political bureau of the Chinese Communist Party – composed of 25 leaders, reduced to 24 following the 20e national convention, this fall – meets to take stock of the economic situation: in July and December. In July, the minutes insisted on the need to maintain the “dynamic zero Covid policy”. “The emergence of an epidemic must immediately be placed under strict [mesures de] prevention and control »then specified the leaders.
Nothing like this in the report published Wednesday, December 7. The goal now is to” to optimise “ and of “better link the prevention and control of the epidemic with economic and social development”. The expression “zero Covid” has even purely and simply disappeared. On the same day, the National Health Commission announced that China was ending systematic testing, that people diagnosed positive would be able to be isolated at home and no longer sent to quarantine centers, that confinements would be limited to people carrying the virus. virus and will no longer concern an entire neighborhood or an entire city.
Similarly, testing will cease to be required when traveling on public transport and between cities. Even if the tests remain necessary at the entrance of schools and hospitals and if China has not completely reopened its borders, in particular continuing to impose an eight-day quarantine to enter its territory, the change with the current practice is considerable. While more than 1,200 executives have been sanctioned for three years for not having taken sufficient measures to control the epidemic, it is now the opposite policy that is recommended. The political bureau warns local officials against “formality, bureaucracy and the arbitrary use of power”.
Explosion of youth unemployment
Of course, there is no question of the Chinese Communist Party admitting its mistakes. No question either of admitting to having been sensitive to the demonstrations which, everywhere in the country, multiplied, at the end of November, against the abuses of inhuman confinements. Officially, “prevention and control measures are optimized and perfected, taking into account the situation”, according to the New China agency. But the social and economic situation had become untenable. Growth should be around 3% this year, compared to more than 8% in 2021. In November, exports, the main factor of Chinese growth, even fell by 8.7% compared to November 2021.
You have 59.45% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.