The western world has been consumed with the news of massive public demonstrations in 17 Chinese cities, including. Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Wuhan and in many university campuses The Chinese government has moved quickly to suppress the sometimes violent demonstrations which have erupted across that nation in response the the Zero Covid policy of Chairman Xi Jinping who has favored mass testing, strict lockdowns, tight travel restrictions, and digital tracking over other means of control.
Some US and western news outlets seem pleased (even happy) to report the difficulties the Chinese government is having in controlling the rising discontent. Even suggesting that Chairman Xi Jinping may be threatened with having to “stand down” as some protesters have demanded. As if such political and economic turmoil in China would in some way be a positive development for the USA. It would not.
They are wrong. The demonstrations, discontent and turmoil in China and the potential for evolution of new strains of virus there have the potential to negatively affect our supply chains, our own faltering economy and even our health.
The problems the Chinese have are: their huge population (1.4 billion), their densely packed cities, a large cohort of elderly, the persistent resistance to vaccination of the vulnerable elderly, and a government policy to use Chinese-produced (often less-effective) vaccines. As a result of these circumstances, only about 40% of the population is fully protected. . As a result the government was forced to turn away from wide-spread vaccination to an alternate policy to protect the population using instead: mass testing, and the segregation and lockdown of those infected. But that policy has its drawbacks.
The lockdowns and segregation of huge portions of the population (Zero Covid policy), even to the extent of closing down entire cites, have had the salutary effect of limiting disease transmission. For example, during the recent pandemic, the USA a nation of 325 million, had 100 million cases of Covid (about 30% of the population) , while China (with 1.4 billion) reported only 1.5 million cases (0.1% of the population). Zero Covid policy has left that nation with a very insignificant portion of the population protected by active or natural immunity (derived from having recovered from the disease), this coupled with low vaccination levels, high numbers of non-vaccinated elderly, and low effectiveness of locally-produced vaccines, all have created a population facing a much higher risk of a deadly surge of Covid cases which might have devastating medical and economic effects, and perhaps even overwhelm the medical system.
In authoritarian China, public discontent with the lockdown system has little likelihood of changing the state policy of Zero Covid. Government officials must have long realized that any reduced vigilance and lower levels of confinement of the infected would only result is massive and widespread disease, decreased productivity, closing of industries, and economic decline.
Were such an event to occur, China, with much of its huge population infected with Covid would, in effect become an enormous human “Petri dish” for the rapid evolution of new, potentially more deadly strains of Covid. The more humans infected the more likelihood for evolutionary change in the virus. There would be a terrible price to pay in China to lost lives, and a stagnant economy. But the disaster would likely extend to the wider world as a result of the globalized economy and the large numbers of global travelers—impossible to contain—in our modern society. These travelers would surely transmit these new strains of virus world wide..
Let us not gloat over the difficulties we see in China. Let us hope that the Chinese get their human and viral populations under control. We all live together in this modern global economy.
We might be wise to offer our own unused vaccines to help
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