Speaker 1: From Bloomberg News and I Heart Radio. It's the big take.
Speaker 1: I'm West Kasova. Today, China struggles with a massive COVID surge.
Speaker 1: As we talked about on the show the other day,
Speaker 1: that China spy balloon the U S shotdown is about
Speaker 1: the only China related story making headlines right now, especially
Speaker 1: as news develops that China's balloon surveillance program was more
Speaker 1: widespread than anyone new and we'll continue to follow that story,
Speaker 1: but as China tries to contain the fallout from that
Speaker 1: incident overseas at the same time as trying to contain
Speaker 1: another problem at home, a wave of COVID cases that
Speaker 1: overwhelmed the country. You may remember in December, Chinese citizens
Speaker 1: protested in the streets against the government straight COVID zero lockdowns,
Speaker 1: and soon after President Jijim Pain relaxed the restrictions and
Speaker 1: China has begun to reopen. People are out and about again,
Speaker 1: but is feared. That's also meant a staggering spike in
Speaker 1: COVID cases throughout China. More than a billion people are
Speaker 1: believed to have been infected, and it's put an enormous
Speaker 1: strain on China's health system, which hasn't been able to
Speaker 1: keep up. My colleagues John Lou in Beijing and Shiad
Speaker 1: Zubung in Singapore joined me now to talk about how
Speaker 1: China is coping with so many sick people all at once. John,
Speaker 1: let me start with you. The last time you were
Speaker 1: on this program in November, it was that the height
Speaker 1: of the protests against the COVID zero lockdowns, and you
Speaker 1: said three things were likely to happen. The first was
Speaker 1: that the protests would subside, they wouldn't become more widespread.
Speaker 1: That the Chinese government, which has a history of responding
Speaker 1: to social unrest, would likely ease the lockdowns, and that
Speaker 1: if that happened, there would be a wildfire of COVID
Speaker 1: cases across the country. And all three of those things
Speaker 1: fairly quickly came true. Can you now just say exactly
Speaker 1: what's happening now in Beijing and other cities now that
Speaker 1: COVID has spread so far so fast. Well, we saw
Speaker 1: a huge uptick in infections widespread throughout the country, lots
Speaker 1: of disruption. As a result of that, we had a
Speaker 1: big increase in deaths across the country, specifically among the elderly.
Speaker 1: We've seen cases where hospitals have impact with people who
Speaker 1: are sick looking for care, a shortage of medicines. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: very very busy at crematoriums and funeral homes across the country.
Speaker 1: That that was sort of the situation we had in
Speaker 1: late December early January, China reported about sixty deaths for
Speaker 1: the month through January twelve. There was almost thirteen deaths
Speaker 1: in a week in early January. Since then, though, towards
Speaker 1: the end of the month end of January, the number
Speaker 1: of affections seems to have peaked. It seems to have plateaued.
Speaker 1: It started to come down, the same with deaths, the
Speaker 1: same with critical cases, and now the government is trumpeting
Speaker 1: that the worst is over. One of the statistics that
Speaker 1: really kind of made my eyes pop was that an
Speaker 1: official announced that eighty percent of Chinese citizens had been
Speaker 1: infected with COVID. This was right before the lunar New
Speaker 1: Year's celebration. That just seems like an astonishing figure. I mean,
Speaker 1: the wave really took over China at a huge scale.
Speaker 1: We call it a tsunami of COPE cases really just
Speaker 1: swept over China. I think the main reason why the
Speaker 1: COPE virus southern spreading so dramatically across the countries because
Speaker 1: partly because the government hasn't really done anything substantial to
Speaker 1: prepare the public for the crisis. I mean, it didn't
Speaker 1: vaccinate enough people, especially the elderly. It didn't really tell
Speaker 1: people to stock up on on the medicine to do
Speaker 1: sort of cater to to the infections as well. And
Speaker 1: also it really testifies to the fact that omicron is
Speaker 1: just impossible to be keep up, you know, with with
Speaker 1: the traditional lockdown methods, and now that the lockdown has gone,
Speaker 1: it was just impossible to keep the virus at bay.
Speaker 1: One really surprising thing too, are these stories of Chinese
Speaker 1: citizens who have had to go into online chat rooms
Speaker 1: asking people if they had the most basic things I
Speaker 1: view profen COVID testing kits, and they were relying on
Speaker 1: strangers to send them things from their own medicine cabinets.
Speaker 1: Why did the government not have these just very very
Speaker 1: common things available so was I think part of the
Speaker 1: reason that happened was the change from being a country
Speaker 1: that was determined to snuff out every single case of
Speaker 1: COVID flipping so quickly to one where everything was open.
Speaker 1: You know that they were gonna let COVID just run
Speaker 1: through the popular That change was so quick it caught
Speaker 1: everybody off guard, caught the population off guard, it caught
Speaker 1: doctor's off guard, it caught pharmacies off guard. There was
Speaker 1: a sudden surge in demand for medicines and there just
Speaker 1: wasn't that supply. Do you think that the government, looking
Speaker 1: at this problem of lifting COVID, had to make the
Speaker 1: calculation that there was no real way to contain it,
Speaker 1: and so that they simply were going to have to
Speaker 1: accept a huge surge people across the country getting sick
Speaker 1: in large numbers, many people dying in order to get
Speaker 1: through it. I think that was part of it, Just
Speaker 1: that omicron, especially the latest variants, were so infectious that
Speaker 1: the old playbook of lockdowns and mass test it just
Speaker 1: wasn't as effective. And I think the government sort of
Speaker 1: took a hard look, and if you there were protests,
Speaker 1: people were getting sick, people were upset by the lockdowns,
Speaker 1: that ultimately the calculation cost benefit was that it was
Speaker 1: better to open up, because I think the worst thing
Speaker 1: that could have happened was to continue the lockdowns but
Speaker 1: still for thousands, millions of people to get sick and
Speaker 1: then still to have people die and so to have
Speaker 1: the worst of both worlds, and I think that was
Speaker 1: what finally pushed, you know, the decision making to open up.
Speaker 1: It's about John mentioned earlier that it looks like the
Speaker 1: number of deaths is actually coming down, that the illness
Speaker 1: has spread so quickly through the country that the people
Speaker 1: who are going to get sick largely have. But there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of questions about how accurate the reporting
Speaker 1: of the number of deaths has been because of the
Speaker 1: way the government records deaths. Can you explain a little
Speaker 1: bit about that, Yes, So the government has been very
Speaker 1: careful in terms of counting COVID deaths. Definition is pretty narrow,
Speaker 1: limiting it to you know, those dies of COVID only.
Speaker 1: And and at the same time, when releasing our death
Speaker 1: related data, the government has also specified that it is
Speaker 1: only referring to deaths that occurred at the hospital. So
Speaker 1: so a death that happened in someone's household would then
Speaker 1: be necessarily counted into the totally because the goble wouldn't
Speaker 1: have a way to do, you know, to see into
Speaker 1: the data. That that is sort of the government acknowledging
Speaker 1: that you know, it's it's data is is not that
Speaker 1: complete when it comes to this solid picture, which is
Speaker 1: why we need to rely at times on social media
Speaker 1: for reports on infections and deaths as well. And and
Speaker 1: I think from our observations on social media, it does
Speaker 1: seem like the way that's sort of you know, taped off,
Speaker 1: and deaths is not are not occurring as often as
Speaker 1: as during the initial WAF John did we see higher
Speaker 1: death rates in China, especially in areas where there were
Speaker 1: fewer vaccines available than we did in other parts of
Speaker 1: the world. So I think this is partly the data
Speaker 1: to blame. We just don't have the amount of clarity
Speaker 1: to be able to definitively say whether or not the
Speaker 1: rate of deaths was higher or lower. Trying to show
Speaker 1: some transparency after pressure from the World Health Organization, the
Speaker 1: US and others, but because of the way they have
Speaker 1: handled starter up till now, there's definitely always a question mark,
Speaker 1: particularly around these claims that so much of the population
Speaker 1: an official saying at the weekend of the population has
Speaker 1: been affected. I've I'm very skeptical of these numbers. Zibung
Speaker 1: to make up for shortages of healthcare and medicine, especially
Speaker 1: in rural areas of China. There's a citizens movement that
Speaker 1: sprung up called the Campaign to Breathe in Down Fever
Speaker 1: in Villages. What is that right? Um? So the campaign
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, the Campaign to bring down Fever in
Speaker 1: Villages is actually a grassroots action started by China Civil
Speaker 1: Society really to sort of you know, coordinates medical supplies
Speaker 1: and couple ship them to the countryside where these sort
Speaker 1: of supplies a more acute and so so there are
Speaker 1: really two things that they are going on here. Wonder
Speaker 1: is that you know, some villagers are also being affected
Speaker 1: in the first wave and the government didn't really step
Speaker 1: in at the point in time. It really just took
Speaker 1: a backseat on the whole situation. And that's led to
Speaker 1: a lot of these grassroots initiatives to cut stepping and
Speaker 1: have like take charge and coordinates supplies and to ship
Speaker 1: them to the people in need. And then when when
Speaker 1: when this first waves tapered off and we are you know,
Speaker 1: in the running up to the lunar New Year, that's
Speaker 1: when the government find the kids that is stuff and
Speaker 1: say that okay, you know what with all of these
Speaker 1: travelers going back home, they are bound to bring virus
Speaker 1: home with them as well. And that's when the government
Speaker 1: really started to pay more attention to the country side
Speaker 1: and launching more sort of top down matches to ramp
Speaker 1: up the health care face capacities in these villages. And
Speaker 1: that's where we see that the government has some you know,
Speaker 1: given villages oximeters and the anti paractics and stuff. John
Speaker 1: In these widespread protests at the end of last year,
Speaker 1: people were angry. They wanted an immediate end to COVID
Speaker 1: zero lockdowns, and they got them. Of course, we've been
Speaker 1: talking all about the downside of opening up so quickly
Speaker 1: without preparation. How have people responded to this? You know,
Speaker 1: the government did what they asked, and now there are
Speaker 1: the consequences had people been patient accepting of what happened here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think China's a lot like you know,
Speaker 1: the U S and many other parts of the world
Speaker 1: where the public opinion is quite a split on the issue.
Speaker 1: There are there are lots of people working, age people,
Speaker 1: people who have businesses who are really happy that the
Speaker 1: economy has reopened. We've just had the Lunar New Year Festival,
Speaker 1: which is the most important holiday in China, and many
Speaker 1: people were able to go home to see family for
Speaker 1: the first time in many years because there are no
Speaker 1: longer these restrictions on travel internally. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: we talked about the larger number of deaths that we've
Speaker 1: seen across the country. That's obviously impact of families all over.
Speaker 1: And we have actually seen some criticism online, people saying,
Speaker 1: you know, people who didn't want to open up or
Speaker 1: were against opening up, saying blaming these debts on those
Speaker 1: who protested, saying, look look what that's gotten us. And
Speaker 1: so there is this balance between you know, pro and
Speaker 1: con people who opposed and people who supported the reopening.
Speaker 1: But I think looking forward, if you listen to the
Speaker 1: government spin on the way on what's happening, you will
Speaker 1: see that there is much more of an emphasis on
Speaker 1: the economy, rebounding growth, returning people getting back to work,
Speaker 1: job prospects for the for the young, the newly graduated,
Speaker 1: and I think that will be the emphasis going forward.
Speaker 1: John Subunk, please stay with me. Our conversation continues after
Speaker 1: the break. We just a couple of days ago on
Speaker 1: this show talked about how China's economic reopening is going
Speaker 1: to give a big boost to the world economy and
Speaker 1: also possibly increase inflation because of increased demand from China.
Speaker 1: What are the sort of pains associated with reopening very
Speaker 1: quickly after three years amid a wave of COVID. Saw
Speaker 1: the initial stage of the recovery was that, you know,
Speaker 1: the economy really to cough, you know, affect three operations
Speaker 1: were being disrupted by all of these cofee cases as well.
Speaker 1: But now that's you know, hopefully the first wave is
Speaker 1: well behind us, and and and China kind of like
Speaker 1: kickstart to all of these progrowth policies once again, including
Speaker 1: a surprise easing on the crackdowns on tech firms and
Speaker 1: property sector. That could point us to a stronger rebounding
Speaker 1: the coming months, although that again is subjected to you know,
Speaker 1: where the COVID will kind of like spring up again
Speaker 1: and disrupting all of these operations. If you walk through say,
Speaker 1: cities in Western Europe or the United States, when people
Speaker 1: kind of emerged from the darkest days of COVID, you
Speaker 1: saw so many shops, so many restaurants had not made
Speaker 1: it through and they were closed permanently. Are we seeing
Speaker 1: a similar thing in China cities that people are coming
Speaker 1: out after three years and looking around and so many
Speaker 1: businesses that they once went to are no longer they.
Speaker 1: I mean, definitely some shops have folded after this you know,
Speaker 1: on and off sort of lockdown situation that China was
Speaker 1: doing in the past three years. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is important to note that Chinese COVI zero wasn't like
Speaker 1: a consistent soft lockdown mode being imposed on the whole country.
Speaker 1: It was really, you know, depends on the COVID situation
Speaker 1: in the particular city, in the particular districts. Even in
Speaker 1: some cases otherwise when there's no copy cases, people are
Speaker 1: really living just as normal and sometimes they don't even
Speaker 1: need to wear a mask in ourdoors. And businesses were
Speaker 1: allowed to operate. But it's really that sort of on
Speaker 1: and off lockdown with the events of Omicron that makes
Speaker 1: the whole business operations unsustainable. John is the sort of
Speaker 1: I guess social contract between the Chinese people in the
Speaker 1: government that they accept one party rule a lot of
Speaker 1: restrictions in exchange for companty in government, good public services, protection,
Speaker 1: public safety. Has that been shattered a bit, our people
Speaker 1: expressing kind of discontent in a way that maybe they
Speaker 1: didn't before. I think it has definitely been stressed by
Speaker 1: the situation. It's been put under greater stress that compact,
Speaker 1: the social compact, but I think it was under a
Speaker 1: lot of stress during the lockdowns. I mean, we saw
Speaker 1: the protests, We saw the impact on the economy, We
Speaker 1: saw the high rates of youth unemployment that that hadn't
Speaker 1: existed in decades in China, and that I think ultimately
Speaker 1: would have produced more stress on that that compact between
Speaker 1: the government and society than what what we're going through
Speaker 1: right now, which is obviously the deaths, the critical illnesses
Speaker 1: are have had a huge impact on families across the country.
Speaker 1: But we do seem to be over the peak of that.
Speaker 1: The economy is coming back, and so I think over
Speaker 1: the next months, over the next year, the government is
Speaker 1: going to be able to spend the story, you know,
Speaker 1: to say, look, what we did was the best thing,
Speaker 1: and ultimately we came out through the other side into
Speaker 1: a better place. And John before COVID President Ji Jimping,
Speaker 1: who had solidified his power and was making very sweeping
Speaker 1: changes in Chinese society, had really started to crack down
Speaker 1: on forms of protest, descent free expression then had happened before.
Speaker 1: Our people now finding that they're able to criticize a
Speaker 1: little bit more as a government's sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: allowing a little bit more room to dissent just to
Speaker 1: avoid pressure building up. I think the government is quite
Speaker 1: sophisticated and how it manages sort of social what people
Speaker 1: were talking about, the general discussion around the country. And
Speaker 1: so for example, when we had so many people upset
Speaker 1: about the lockdowns, there was it seemed an allowance, a
Speaker 1: greater allowance for people to criticize that, to voice their
Speaker 1: upset nous. Since then, that has again tightened very noticeably.
Speaker 1: We we've had reports of many of the those who
Speaker 1: participate in the protests, people who helped sort of drum
Speaker 1: up attention for the protests, being detained by the police.
Speaker 1: So I don't think there is in the greater sense,
Speaker 1: any relaxation of how tightly controlled public opinion is in China.
Speaker 1: That being said, I think the government is really sensitive
Speaker 1: to to making changes sort of course correction when it
Speaker 1: has to to make sure that people are not you know,
Speaker 1: are not being pushed to an extreme when it comes
Speaker 1: to what they think about the government, what they think
Speaker 1: about policy, what they're undergoing in their lives, and so
Speaker 1: you know, in in that respect, I don't think much
Speaker 1: has changed really We'll be right back. M h. It's aboon.
Speaker 1: One way it's possible to get a feel for public
Speaker 1: sentiment in China is from the conversations that are happening
Speaker 1: on social platforms. Are there any trends in what people
Speaker 1: are talking about now with all the tunnel in the
Speaker 1: country that stand out to you? So? Um, what we've
Speaker 1: been seeing is that some people are really just sort
Speaker 1: of pushing the blame on the protesters or in general
Speaker 1: logic generally the people have called for a relaxation of
Speaker 1: coffee matches, and I've actually chanced upon this wayboard topics
Speaker 1: of way boards China's equivalence of Twitter, So I've actually
Speaker 1: chanced upon this wayboard discussion consisting a bunch of people
Speaker 1: sort of asking for a return of COVID zero or
Speaker 1: at least some degree of lockdowns because they were seeing that,
Speaker 1: you know, the wave was just too two two huge,
Speaker 1: and the tow was just too great for for them
Speaker 1: to to be able to understand. And I think that
Speaker 1: really speaks to the whip lash that just take COVID
Speaker 1: zero UTN has created on the Chinese society, you know,
Speaker 1: because they were unable to sort of understand why the
Speaker 1: government has taken such a dramatic change all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: and that's why they was they just couldn't fathom in
Speaker 1: that they were, you know, covlet putting the blame on
Speaker 1: any other parties, that they thoughts they were responsible, and
Speaker 1: that in this case, how the protesters can I just
Speaker 1: add to what the Bones saying in the sense that
Speaker 1: because the government censors social media posts that are critical
Speaker 1: of government policy, posts that blame the government for the
Speaker 1: increase in death, because those posts tend to get censored away,
Speaker 1: what you have left instead is this discussion of, well,
Speaker 1: it's the protesters who are to blame for the fact
Speaker 1: that so many people have died, and so either by
Speaker 1: by coincidence or by purpose, that tends to be the
Speaker 1: discussion that is more pronounced than China, the one that
Speaker 1: we see more often. It's about one thing that I
Speaker 1: think you spoke to Frederica about before the interview, when
Speaker 1: the two of you were talking, was about just misinformation
Speaker 1: in general, people online looking at using yoga or alternative
Speaker 1: medicine to cure COVID, and how those discussions are going
Speaker 1: about how that's different from Western disinformation. The idea that
Speaker 1: you know COVID doesn't even exist. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: really boils down to how the government has vilified COVID
Speaker 1: nine team. For the past three years. You know, the
Speaker 1: government has been telling its people that COVID nighteing is
Speaker 1: a very serious disease because a lot of symptoms in
Speaker 1: the people, and and and sometimes long COVID is there
Speaker 1: to stay as well. And so when when the government
Speaker 1: just suddenly opens up, we fought, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: educating the public about about about the variance. Really that
Speaker 1: has driven some people to sort of treats the virus
Speaker 1: as a very serious thing to look after. And and
Speaker 1: at the same time, there's also this erosion of trust
Speaker 1: in the government, you know, um or at least in
Speaker 1: the government's backs sort of medical experts. They don't really
Speaker 1: trust that the experts were speaking out of science. They
Speaker 1: think that the experts were just being directed by the
Speaker 1: government to however line that the government was was looking
Speaker 1: at at the point in time. So so now they
Speaker 1: think that, you know, the experts words are not to
Speaker 1: be trusted. And that's also driven them to this sort
Speaker 1: of alternative information. And and we are seeing that the
Speaker 1: people's Dady that is the mouthpiece of the Communist Party
Speaker 1: has to come out and clarified to the people that
Speaker 1: eat encant pictures doesn't really help you with COVID niting symptoms. John,
Speaker 1: when you look down the road three months, six months,
Speaker 1: even a year from now, how do you see this
Speaker 1: plane out? Where do you think China is with COVID
Speaker 1: in the future. I think in six months time, it
Speaker 1: could very well be that COVID just seems like it
Speaker 1: never happened, It didn't exist. People. Maybe people privately amongst
Speaker 1: themselves will talk about it, but you know, in official
Speaker 1: media and mass media more broadly there there might just
Speaker 1: be no mention of it. That the government will want
Speaker 1: to very much move forward. And you know, I do
Speaker 1: think that the economy should be much better down the road. Obviously,
Speaker 1: partly that will be because last year was so terrible
Speaker 1: that will just make this year look much much better
Speaker 1: and that will add to that argument. So I think
Speaker 1: in six months and a year from now, you know,
Speaker 1: it will have seemed like thousands of years ago that
Speaker 1: this happened. John Deebung, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Thank you West, Thank you. You can read more from
Speaker 1: Shia Zebung and on lou at Bloomberg dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to us here at The Big Take. It's
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