At the height of China’s worst Covid epidemic, authorities in Shanghai took over the glittering high-rise office buildings and turned them into centers of mass isolation. Floor by floor, room by room, the buildings were filled with people, their beds arranged in narrow rows.
These buildings, and Shanghai’s wider lockdown, reinforced the power of China’s ruling Communist Party to raise funds in an effort to eliminate Covid. But they also fueled deep frustration with the government’s failures and overstepping.
In eastern Shanghai, police in white protective uniforms clashed with angry residents who protested being evicted from their homes when their buildings were used as solitary confinement.
Inside these centers, silence, privacy, and even showers were lacking. Yolanda Zhou, a Shanghai resident, said her 86-year-old grandfather had cried as he was being sent to such a high-rise office building. “There were a lot of people in this environment, so he was very scared,” Ms. Zhou said.
The weeks-long lockdown in Shanghai, China’s largest city of 25 million people, is the largest the country has imposed in more than two years. Businesses and factories have closed, leaving the streets of the financial capital empty, a daily reminder of the heavy costs of the “zero Covid” party’s policy.
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“Get everyone who needs to be hired”
Chinese leaders have imposed mass quarantines, calling on officials to “take all who must enter.” This meant that anyone who tested positive would be sent to hospitals or isolation facilities in schools, exhibition centers and other public places.
In western Shanghai, more than 100 people slept on cots stacked together in a renovated office building. There were only four bathrooms, no shower and only one choice for breakfast: plain bread.
Another space, in a conference center, contained thousands of beds arranged in zones bordered by purple signs. The floodlights remained on around the clock, forcing residents to use cardboard to block out the glare.
Leona Cheng
Leona Cheng, a student in her 20s, said the nurses and doctors were so busy that it was difficult to get help. The lack of staff also created miserable living conditions.
The portable toilet counters were soon filled with so much human waste that Ms. Cheng said she stopped drinking water for several days so she would not have to use it so often.
Leona Cheng
Conditions were similar in a secluded area of a high school in Shanghai’s Baoshan district.
Inside the gym, people were lying on beds lined up about a hand apart. In one hallway, rubbish was piled up next to an occupied bed.
u / 1859404834 via Storyful
Across the city, barriers kept residents inside and forced others to stay outside.
Many delivery drivers sleep in tents on the road, unable to return to their homes because they were locked.
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These drivers have been a lifeline for millions of residents confined to their homes, transporting essential food, supplies and medicines at the risk of their health and at a very low fee.
“We want to eat, we want to work!”
The hastily ordered lockdown caused widespread shortages of food and basic necessities and cut off medical care for people with other illnesses. Residents responded with a rare outburst of anger.
Protest videos are rare on the Chinese Internet, where government censors work around the clock to eliminate dissidents. However, during the lockdown, a number of such videos were shared and widely viewed by Chinese social media users.
The Times found and analyzed three different video angles capturing a demonstration in late March in a community called Datang Huayuan in Shanghai’s Baoshan District. In one video, a large group of people gathered outside. “We want supplies!” a woman shouted at a bullhorn. “We want to survive!” Videos of the incident were removed from Weibo, the popular Twitter-like platform.
In some neighborhoods, government leaflets were inconsistent and sparse. Even the richest residents were looking for shopping. Many seniors who do not use smartphones or online shopping applications have suddenly found themselves cut off from everyday life – and food sources.
Others complained about restrictions that prevented them from working even when they had to continue to pay rent in one of the most expensive cities in the world. The Times analyzed and verified the location of another protest video, originally posted on Weibo, in which residents of Luoyang Sancun, a middle-class community in southwest Shanghai, gathered outside and shouted, “We want to eat, we want to work.” we want the right to information! ”
At times, quarrels broke out between residents and government officials who had sealed the entrances of some apartment complexes using green metal fences.
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People pushed with increasing intensity against what they consider to be authoritarian exaggeration.
When Shanghai separated the children from their families, the parents set up online reports, forcing officials to make concessions. When health workers fatally beat a corgi they thought might have been infected, residents complained, prompting community workers to acknowledge that the killing was excessive.
One night, four banners were hung in a normally noisy street, giving voice to the tiredness, sadness and anger of the city. A banner listed people who had died after being denied care and referred to wider oppression. Another criticized Chinese censorship.
Photos of the banners were widely circulated on Weibo and in private groups on WeChat, the Chinese messaging app, but were quickly censored. Gao Ming, a Shanghai-based podcaster, said Chinese police asked him to delete a tweet containing photos from the banners. Denied.
“Opposite unlimited lock” “A nurse at Shanghai East Hospital, an asthma patient, a violinist,…” “A nurse at Shanghai East Hospital,…” “Wuhan, Shanghai, Fengxian, Ukraine, you and me” “This content violates the rules and cannot be viewed.”
By morning, the banners were gone.
“The biggest human rights deficit”
To eliminate the signs of resentment, the authorities turned to a proven toy book, flooding the Internet with good-natured propaganda while erasing critical content.
State media have published videos highlighting the commitment of China’s health volunteers and showing patients in quarantine dancing to keep their spirits up. Censors rushed to clear videos and online discussions about food shortages.
But some Chinese internet users were able to stay one step ahead and overturn the propaganda. Users began using the hashtag “US is the country with the largest human rights deficit” to express their criticism of the government’s actions in Shanghai.
@ 用 名 用 名 user: # The United States is the country with the biggest human rights deficit # Well, even though we put seals on people’s doors, we kill pets and waste medical resources to make patients in serious condition lose treatment , but we count the number of deaths but 0!
@ 用 名 用 名 user: #US is the country with the biggest human rights deficit #Right, that’s why we seal the doors of people, kill pets, waste medical resources, so that patients with acute and serious diseases can not receive treatment, but the number of our dead is obviously zero!
The Times hid the usernames.
The Whac-A-Mole game between censors and internet users escalated with the appearance last week of “Voices of April”, a six-minute video that covered the voices of residents begging for help from officials and community workers against black and white. Aerial shots of Shanghai.
“This virus will not kill you, but hunger will kill you,” says one man.
“I’m disappointed I can not help you,” a neighborhood worker told a resident. “If nothing else, I’m even more cracked than you.”
Translated by China Digital Times, via YouTube
Censors began destroying the video. But the users insisted. They kept posting the video, over and over again, reversing it, rotating it, and embedding it in other videos.
For a brief moment, the wave of censorship sparked even heated debates about freedom of speech.
Soon, they too were censored.
