Protests in China Over Its Zero Covid Policy Expose Widespread Discontent with Government

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2022

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In a remarkable display of discontent not seen since the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, protesters across China have taken to the streets demanding an end to the country’s stringent zero-Covid policy. At the outset of the pandemic, China adopted a policy of quarantining and locking down its citizens to prevent the spread of Covid. But while most of the world has moved on to treat Covid as endemic, China’s president Xi Jinping, who was confirmed in October for an unprecedented third term, has stuck to its zero-Covid policy. Demonstrators argue that the policy has placed an extraordinary burden on citizens, and they are demanding not just the end to the restrictions, but also Xi’s resignation, a call that is politically sensitive in a nation where dissent is regularly quashed. We’ll talk about the protests and what impact they might have in changing China’s Covid policy and its future. Guests: Kerry Allen, China media analyst, BBC. Victor Shih, chair in China and Pacific Relations, University of California, San Diego. Nancy Qian, James J. O’Connor professor of Economics, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management; founder, Kellogg’s China Research Lab and China Econ Lab, an independent international organization that promotes research about the Chinese economy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:46.0	Thank you. From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
0:49.4	Protests have sprung up across China asking for an end to the Chinese Communist Party's zero COVID policy.
0:55.0	That policy has asked residents of the country to obey strict quarantine guidelines,
0:59.0	and some cities have endured lockdowns and order of magnitude more intense than anything we ever saw in the United States.
1:05.0	On strictly public health terms, the zero COVID policy has no doubt saved lives.
1:10.0	Through the whole pandemic, just a few
1:11.2	thousand people have died of COVID in China. But many Chinese people are now questioning the
1:15.4	tradeoff between the policy's intent and the collateral damage that it is causing to people's
1:20.5	lives in the country's economy. We talk with Chinese experts about the protests and how the
1:25.5	government is responding. That's all coming up next.
1:34.0	Welcome to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal. In the first year of the pandemic, China's response to
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