Beijing has begun to give official signs that there could be a light at the end of the narrow anti-pandemic tunnel, after citizen protests against the strict zero covid policy and the immediate police deployment to quell any hint of dissent. Vice Minister Sun Chunlan, known as the czarina of covid zero, has assured that “the country is facing a new situation” in the battle against the pandemic. His words reflect the script twist that China has begun to write just a few days after the demonstrations. And they coincide with the visit to the capital of the country by Charles Michel, president of the European Council, who has exposed in his meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the example of the European immunization formula.
Vice Minister Sun explained that China is entering this new phase “as the pathogenicity of the omicron virus weakens, more people are vaccinated, and experience in containing the virus is accumulated,” she said on Wednesday at a meeting of the National Health Commission. At the meeting, he was able to analyze the “opinions and suggestions” of experts, the official Xinhua news agency reported. In their statements, the expression “zero dynamic covid”, the official name of the omnipresent strategy until now, was conspicuously absent. And he called for “strengthening the immunization of the entire population, especially the elderly”, one of the weaknesses in the face of reopening.
These words – which the Chinese leaders and propaganda organs measure to the millimeter – have been accompanied by concrete gestures in recent days, such as the temporary lifting of lockdowns in several districts of Guangzhou, a manufacturing center in the south of the country where workers Migrants affected by the closures have staged harsh confrontations with the police. In the capital of the country, still plagued by a wave of infections, some shopping centers have reopened this Thursday and, according to Bloomberg, those infected with covid will be allowed to quarantine at home (and not centrally in isolated places, such as was done until now).
One of the surprises in this change of pace is that it coincides with the worst infection figures in China since the start of the pandemic, although the wave seems to have already peaked (this Thursday, 36,000 new infections were reported when three days ago they exceeded the 40,000). Another: that some of the analysts closest to Beijing contribute to the conceptual shift, such as Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of the official newspaper Global Times. If a few days ago he highlighted the low mortality of the omicron variant, this Thursday – citing Sun’s words and the relaxation of measures in Guangzhou and Beijing – he stated: “China is accelerating the lifting of large-scale closures”.
The change in the script has also been accompanied by a renewed emphasis by Beijing on vaccination of the elderly, still at very low rates. China has set ambitious goals that will require it to step on the accelerator to immunize the most vulnerable. The Government intends that 90% of those over 80 years of age have at least one dose in the next two months, as revealed by the Chinese economic magazine Caixin (currently only 76.6%) have it; and aims to reach that same 90% among all those over 80 who meet the requirements to be fully vaccinated or to receive the booster injection. Among those between the ages of 60 and 79, the goal is to reach 95% by the end of January. “The vaccination strategy is seen as crucial for the reopening,” says this magazine.
The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, on a lightning visit to the Chinese capital this Thursday, underlined the European example in vaccination before President Xi. “I have shared our experience and I have made it clear that European pharmaceutical companies are willing to provide vaccines to the country if the Chinese authorities approve them,” Michel said at a press conference after the meeting. Like the trip to Beijing at the beginning of November by the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the European leader has met with the Chinese leadership in the Great Hall of the People and has had hardly any contact with the outside due to the restrictions due to the pandemic. Today is the first high-level, face-to-face meeting between the European Union and the Asian giant since 2020.
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Michel, the first foreign leader to visit China after the biggest show of public disapproval on its streets since the 1989 protests, has tiptoed over the forced question of whether he had a chance to deal with Xi about last weekend’s demonstrations. . “Yes, we have discussed this matter” and “the reaction of the authorities” has been limited to sharing. The President of the European Council preferred to emphasize that it has been agreed to resume the so-called Dialogue on Human Rights, a mechanism under which Beijing and Brussels have met 37 times, the last in 2019, before the pandemic. “It is a very important step that, I hope, improves the level with which China and the EU deal with a transcendental issue such as human rights. For the EU, the right to demonstrate is fundamental and is guaranteed through international instruments and the Constitutions of the member countries”, he added.
Chinese influence on Russia
The European leader said that during his meeting with Xi, which lasted about three hours, “a lot of time” had been spent discussing the war in Ukraine. Motivated precisely by Beijing’s calculated equidistance in condemning the Russian invasion, at the end of October the Twenty-seven held a strategic meeting to face the challenge posed to the bloc by an increasingly assertive China. This Thursday, Michel asked the Chinese leader to “use his influence” and present “concrete arguments” to convince the Kremlin that “it must respect international law and comply with its international obligations.”
In his appearance, Michel assured that Xi “has made it very clear that he is not providing Russia with weapons” and that China considers that “the nuclear threat is unacceptable and irresponsible.” Chinese state media, which nine months after the start of the war continues to avoid naming it as such, quotes Xi using a proverb to express that in war conflicts, innocent lives are also at stake: “When the gates of the city, the fish in the pit suffer too.” As Michel stated: “We have discussed that, in the coming weeks, the entire international community, including China, must use all available tools and instruments to convince the Kremlin and Russia to end the war and respect Ukraine’s sovereignty.” manifested.
The European Union is in the process of recalibrating its relationship with China and taking a unified stance on Beijing. More and more voices within the bloc claim the need to redesign the formula by which the Asian giant is considered, first, a “strategic partner”; then a competitor and, finally, a systemic rival.
Regarding trade, Michel stressed that European companies and investors “need more reciprocity and balance.” “On the European side, access to the market continues to be very open, while in China many sectors remain much more closed,” he denounced. According to the state news agency Xinhua, Xi stressed that his country “will remain open to European firms and hopes that the EU can eliminate interference to provide a fair and transparent business environment for Chinese companies.” Michel also took advantage of the meeting to reaffirm Brussels’ commitment to the principle of one china for the benefit of “peace and stability” in the Taiwan Strait, through which “40% of the European Union’s trade” sails.
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