Shanghai and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region were once both sides of the Chinese coin.
Shanghai It was a charming China with a thriving middle class, shopping in high-rise buildings, Art Deco-style apartments, and Paris, and taking a walk in Kyoto, Japan.
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region It was dark China. The western frontier region, twice as large as Texas, is home to more than 10 million Muslim minorities subject to mass detention, religious oppression, intrusive digital and physical surveillance.
Since April, 25 million residents of Shanghai have enjoyed some treatment in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with a strict blockade throughout the city. They are lined up in a round of Covid-19 testing to prove that they are virus-free. This is the result of a pandemic to Uighurs lined up at checkpoints to prove they do not pose a security threat.
The political slogan of the government’s Zero Corona campaign is the same as the slogan of crackdown on Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Residents of both locations are subject to social control and Surveillance.. Instead of a re-education camp in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, about 500,000 Shanghai residents who tested positive were sent to a quarantine camp.
What many Shanghai residents are experiencing is violence The cruelty that Uighurs and Kazakhs have endured in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region since 2017. But they are all victims of meaningless political campaigns caused by delusions, anxieties, and authoritarian excesses.
Perhaps for the first time, seriously, as more Chinese cities impose strict blockades, people can regain the freedom of the little individuals they had before surrendering it to the government during a pandemic. Is discussing.
“The blockade of Shanghai is a stress test of social control,” Wang Lixiong, author of the book on Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Tibet and Surveillance, said in an interview. “If authorities can control a complex society like Shanghai, they can control everywhere in China.”
Mr. Wang, who wrote non-fiction and science fiction, has been trapped in Shanghai since March. He is afraid of China, which is even more dystopian than it is today. He monitors everyone, turns each region into an on-site intensive camp, and future crises, wars, famines, climate disasters or economic collapses.
A retired journalist in Shanghai wrote on social media’s WeChat timeline that he wasn’t afraid of viruses. Instead, he is more worried that the government will retain all the social control mechanisms it used during the blockade to treat people like pigs and criminals.
Murong Xuecun, author of a new book on the blockade of Wuhan, said:Deadly quiet city“He and his friends said a few years ago they were talking about the risks of other parts of China becoming like Xinjiang. But he didn’t expect it to happen so quickly.
“The pandemic has brought great benefits to the CCP. The CCP has had the opportunity to expand its power infinitely,” he said in an interview.
One of the most striking similarities between the blockade of Shanghai and the crackdown on Xinjiang is the political slogan used by the authorities. In the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, repeated orders to detain a large number of Uighurs have stated:Round up everyone who should round up.. In Shanghai, the government has expressed its determination with the slogan “Send 500,000 people to quarantine camps.”Accept everyone to embrace.. In Chinese, they are the same four letters.
Both the crackdown on the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the blockade of Shanghai are political campaigns that can only be explained by the rationale for the ruling Communist Party’s rule. Do whatever it takes to reach your leadership goals.
That’s why Mao’s breakthrough brought about a great famine, why the Cultural Revolution led to 10 years of political turmoil and economic destruction, and the one-child policy traumatized many women and demographically the country. That’s why we were in crisis. In each case, the leadership mobilized the entire country to pursue the goal at any cost. In each case, it caused a catastrophe.
In Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, “Hit hardIn the campaign, about one million Muslims were sent to re-education camps because the government considered them problematic, such as quitting alcohol, praying, or visiting foreign countries. rice field. They were cross-examined, beaten, and forced into an endless indoctrination session.
In Shanghai, authorities sent people who tested positive for Covid to a makeshift quarantine camp. It was not a problem that some people recovered from the infection and tested negative. It doesn’t matter if you are 2 months old or 90 years old. The situation at some quarantine centers is so terrible that they are called refugee camps or Gulag on social media.
Two young experts documentation Some of the older people I met at the quarantine camp had podcasts, articles, and WeChat photos. I met a man who had recovered from a stroke and couldn’t use the toilet, a man who had lost his eyesight due to lack of medicine, and a 95-year-old woman who was so weak that he had to take him from the bus. To the camp.
These older people would have been much better off staying at home or in a hospital with proper care. Instead, they arrived at the camp because of a government order to “accept all those who should be accepted.”
According to scholars and human rights activists, the blockade in Shanghai and elsewhere has led the Chinese government to move steadily towards a social control mechanism that combines surveillance techniques and grassroots organizations deployed in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
“”There is a real fear that China could become like Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region or North Korea, “said Maya Wang, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. work About oppression in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. “We have been monitoring Xi Jinping since 2013,” she said of China’s top leader. “I think Covid’s control is like a milestone to deepen the crackdown.”
Almost all Chinese have health codes on their mobile phones that indicate Covid’s risk and indicate movement parameters. Some people are afraid that the government will maintain the system and use it after Covid. For example, you can change your health path to a security path and flag “Troublemakers” to restrict travel.
Like Muslims in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, people in Shanghai and many other cities have lost their rights and legal protection in the blockade.
Cities in northern Hebei became a hot topic when community workers requested residents Surrender Those keys allow you to lock up from the outside.In Shanghai, community workers walk inside the apartment disinfectant After the resident shows positive, even though there is no scientific evidence that the disinfectant can kill the coronavirus.With widely distributed videos and social media Weibo postA woman recorded how a group of police officers broke the door of an apartment and took her to a quarantine camp even though she couldn’t present a Covid test report. According to her post, she was already in the camp when her Covid test returned negative after a few hours.
A lawyer in southern Shenzhen told me that he was furious when his building was locked after a surveillance camera was installed in front of the apartment door during the quarantine of his house and his neighbor tested positive this year. There was nothing he could do. He bought a ladder so he could escape next time.
Some lawyers and legal scholars have expressed concern that some pandemic measures are clearly against the law. “The destruction of the rule of law is a much worse social pandemic than a biological pandemic.” I have written Zhao Hong, a law professor in Beijing.
No one in the leadership is listening.Also, they have never heard Medical expert The omicron variant of the coronavirus is more infectious than previous versions, but much milder, and China needs to readjust its zero-corona policy. We also didn’t listen to economists and entrepreneurs who were worried about the possibility of a recession. Many articles with expert opinion have been discontinued.
The middle class experienced great disillusionment as the people of Shanghai and other Chinese lost their rights.
“It was a big shock,” said Minshin Pay, a government professor at Claremont McKenna University who grew up in Shanghai. “For them, something unimaginable has happened.” But he thinks it could be a good political lesson. “Freedom is strange. You usually don’t understand how valuable it is until you lose it.”
Sun Zhe, editorial director of a fashion magazine in Shanghai, is thinking about his life choices. “Stop all unnecessary shopping. I stop working hard. It was all a lie,” he said. I have written With his verified Weibo account. “The rich and decent middle-class lifestyle that we managed to achieve with hard work, intelligence, and luck was shattered in a glorious pandemic campaign.”
“Prosperity is only for decoration,” he continued. “After all, there are also luxury shopping centers and hotels in North Korea.”
