Podcast: The problem with China’s Zero COVID strategy

TRANSCRIPT: The problem with China’s Zero COVID strategy

Yanzhong Huang:

The last thing Chinese leaders want is to be isolated at the international stage. When other countries learn to live with the virus, I think China will find that the zero tolerance strategy unsustainable.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we talk about the biggest geopolitical risk for 2022. Spoiler alert, you've heard about it before, COVID. But this time we dive deep into how China's current coronavirus strategy could pose a big threat to the global economy. President Xi Jinping's zero-COVID policy has done extremely well so far to keep the virus at bay through unprecedented capacity to track and trace, to quarantine and to lockdown.

But Omicron, a variant said to be at least four times more contagious than Delta could make that strategy highly ineffective. More lockdowns and staffing shortages in China will lead to supply chain disruptions, higher inflation and greater political instability worldwide. I speak to Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. He thinks China will soon have to learn how to live with the virus. Let's get to it.

Announcer:

The GZERO World podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service, safety and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. How can sports change the world for the better? On The Long Game, a co-production of Foreign Policy and Doha Debates, hear stories of courage and conviction both on and off the field, directly from athletes themselves. If Ibtihaj Muhammad, Olympic medalist and global change agent hosts The Long Game, hear new episodes every week on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Ian Bremmer:

Yanzhong Huang, thank you so much for joining us on GZERO World.

Yanzhong Huang:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

Talk to us a little bit about what China's zero-COVID policy is?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, that policy I think has been formally in place after March 2020 when China essentially contained the spread of the COVID virus in Wuhan. So they want to sustain the achievements they made. So they launched that strategy with the attempts to contain any sporadic outbreaks. So that strategy was first tested in the summer of 2020 in Beijing when there was a small number of outbreaks, which were immediately followed by mass testing, aggressive contact tracing, quarantine, and then sealing of neighborhoods. So that becomes the standard playbook for other localities to follow in containing the virus spread ever since.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, I mean usually when I hear zero-COVID, I think that they mean really low COVID. But I saw at Shanghai Disneyland, they had one person that had exposure. They saw someone with COVID and they locked down 28,000 people for the day. I mean, are they literally saying if you find one case of COVID, what do they do?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, it depends on how they perceive the risk is. And also depends on what locality you are in, right? So in a place like in Shanghai, well they are very proud of the so-called precision pandemic control. So when they first identify a local transmission, keep in mind we talk about local transmission, not imported cases. So if they identify the local transmission, they're going to assess what kind of risk this is going to pose? And then follow that with the corresponding measures to undertake.

So if they perceive that the risk is relatively low, it has not caused any widespread of the virus, then they're probably just going to have the measures targeting a particular neighborhood or a particular place, like a hospital. And then that measure will be imposed in that place.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, they believe that their policy so far has been enormously successful. I mean, they're quite proud of what they've accomplished through zero-COVID today?

Yanzhong Huang:

That's true. In fact, this policy itself has now been so closely connected to the success of the Chinese pandemic control model. And in a way also linked to the success or superiority of the Chinese political system. Especially when you compare what is going on in China and the United States, but could easily point out by the mass failure in the US in terms of the number of cases, and death. While in China, the level of infection remains extremely low.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, we were obviously very skeptical of data that was coming out of China in the early days after they had obscured the human-to-human transmission to the World Health Organization, about numbers of cases and even deaths in Wuhan. Do you feel quite comfortable and confident that the numbers of cases and deaths that the Chinese government has been reporting more recently are accurate?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, I think it is overall this number is trustworthy. Especially if you consider that local leaders facing strong pressures to reset the cases to zero. So if we let go one more case is found when the claim, there's zero infections, then locality, if one more case is found, he's going to be in big trouble. So I think after March 2020, this numbers on the infection and on the death toll is overall trustworthy.

Ian Bremmer:

So what that implies is that very, very few Chinese to date have actually gotten COVID. There are very few Chinese with antibodies against natural antibodies against this disease.

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, exactly. Well this is where the risk is. When China is facing by these looming Omicron threat, because you have such a large vulnerable population. A few of them develop a natural immunity because they're not exposed to the virus. And then you talk about the vaccines. But despite the very high vaccination rate, we talk about 86% people fully vaccinated. But we know the vaccines are not effective in terms of preventing new infections.

So the antibody levels in the entire country is very low. So when you sustain that approach of zero-COVID for too long, you are going to expect this so-called immunity gap. It's going to become even larger between China and the outside world. And that would be very dangerous. Consider what happened in 16th century where the conquistadors arrived, the New World, and that immunity gap contribute to the death, the mass die-off of the indigenous population.

Ian Bremmer:

And so you're talking about the lack of utility of the Chinese vaccines against Omicron. The mRNA vaccines, especially the booster shots are much more useful, Pfizer and Moderna. But the Chinese government hasn't actually approved either of those vaccines for use in their own population. Why not?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, the main reason is that they don't... It's not necessarily that they don't trust their mRNA vaccines. In fact, they are developing their own mRNA vaccines for using as a booster shots. That clinical trial has been started in Guangxi province, expected to complete by the end of this month. The problem is that they prefer to have the homegrown vaccines to imported ones. So I expect that once they approve their own mRNA vaccines, it makes it more likely for them to approve the BioNTech vaccines.

Ian Bremmer:

So what do you think is going to happen in China over the coming months? Because we know that Omicron is vastly more transmissible than Delta and other previous variants, and yet the Chinese policy is orienting at stopping precisely that.

Yanzhong Huang:

Yeah, I think the coming month will be crucial, right? Because for the government you're not going expect them to abandon a zero-COVID strategy. But indeed you're going to see them to double down on the campaign against the virus. And in the meantime, they're facing a variant that is so highly transmissible. It makes the existing approach very difficult to achieve its objective, resetting cases to zero. And the cost associated with that approach will become, I would say, exponentially higher.

So if the existing approach, especially if they fail to contain the spread of the new variant and leads to the explosion of the cases in the country, that is basically why this means that China will be experiencing a devastating impact of the new variant, under this impact of the new variant.

Ian Bremmer:

What happens, I mean if you get a bunch of cases in one province, one city, you can sack that leader and some people around him, say he didn't do a good job. But if we get the scenario you just suggested, I mean this is a policy that is identified very closely with the president of China, Xi Jinping. How far do you think this potentially goes if they get explosive case transmission?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, if they indeed get this explosive, the cases in the country, well that is tantamount to basically suggest that this approach is done. It's over, right? It has to be abandoned. And China certainly will suffer the short-term pains and potential, there could be social political implications. But if they can muddle through the crises, that might take a couple of weeks before the whole country has been exposed. So they might be actually in much better shape. They're learning to coexistent with the virus.

Ian Bremmer:

So in other words, it's possible that taking the pain as difficult as it would be, might be preferential to trying to maintain this zero-COVID policy where you have to continue to lock down and lockdown more and more. Where the economic costs both in China and globally are going to be much larger.

Yanzhong Huang:

Exactly. So this is essential, what this trade-off between the short-term pain and the long-term pain. In my opinion, I think the long-term pain would be a much more a problem for China considering the socioeconomic cost and the impact on China's foreign relations.

Ian Bremmer:

So if you were advising the Chinese government right now, would you be telling them to jettison the zero-COVID policy?

Yanzhong Huang:

Absolutely. But I think the timing is not good for now because of the Winter Olympics, right? That is around the corner. But I would say after the end of the Winter Olympics, there is a policy window that the Chinese government should seize upon in terms of lowering people's expectations, teaching people to correctly that they understand what this COVID virus is, including the new variant. And also no longer frame the risk, the virus as like a horrible, so dangerous problem to China.

And in the meantime, started to approve, the new mRNA vaccines to use them as booster shots, especially on immunosuppressed population. And if the new antiviral drugs become available, I think it will also help. So in this way, you are going to minimize this potential, the devastating impact that even a small opening is going to cause to the entire country.

Ian Bremmer:

But you don't think that is going to happen?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, I think it is possible that if you look at how the government abandon the prevails the unfunctioning or unpopular policy. But it's not going to be like the government formally announced the end of the policy. They'll just quietly abandon it or replace it with the new policy. And people seem to be fine with that.

Ian Bremmer:

I have seen of course some of these cases where they've been publicly shaming Chinese citizens that have been caught not to have been supporting the lockdown, the quarantine. I mean, someone escapes because they try to get some vegetables and suddenly they're being paraded down a city street with their name emblazoned on their chest. In terms of the Chinese population, is their response, "How dare that guy, he's selfish." Or is the response, "The Chinese government is out of control and we're really sick of being locked into our apartments."

Yanzhong Huang:

Well certainly there's now growing discontent, dissatisfaction with that policy, especially in the localities that are negatively affected. There's the hard lockdown measures. But overall, I think the support for the zero-COVID approach remains very strong in China. So that is why it's so important to lower people's expectations, teach them to learn to coexist with virus. But in the meantime, I think it's also important to change the incentive structure of the local government officials in implementing that policy. Because if you do a lousy job implementing that policy, you're going to lose their job. They're more likely to turn to those heavy-handed excessive measures in order to get things done.

Ian Bremmer:

So Yanzhong, I mean, in a matter of weeks, China's going to be hosting the Beijing Olympics. And I mean, my God, if any of these athletes end up showing up with COVID, I mean, what kind of a message is that going to be sending to the Chinese people who are dealing with these incredibly repressive measures at home? And what is the Chinese government thinking inviting thousands and thousands of athletes into Beijing while they're telling their people that they're under complete lockdown and having zero-COVID?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, I think that they're confident that the precaution measures they just announced will be sufficient to minimize new infections in the bubble and also to minimize the exposure of the Chinese people to the new variant. So certainly they have draw the lessons from the Tokyo Summer Olympics, they try to fix the loopholes. The Tokyo games that the people even they were not fully vaccinated could still participate. But now what China basically told them, you have to be fully vaccinated, otherwise you have to spend three weeks in China before you can enter the bubble. So people also, those participants are not allowed to leave the bubble before the games are over. So they hope these measures will be effective. Even though there might be small outbreaks, or new infections, it's going to be confined in the bubble.

Ian Bremmer:

Because we know fully vaccinated doesn't cut it when it comes to Omicron. So again, it just sounds like they're taking suddenly with the Olympics, they're taking a hell of a lot more risk than they're taking around anything else in China.

Yanzhong Huang:

Yeah, absolutely right. The problem of that zero-COVID strategies that they cannot tolerate even one infection, no matter how mild it is. But we know even the best vaccines cannot prevent people from getting infected. So in that sense, but even this high vaccination rate, as high as 86% becomes irrelevant in terms of fulfilling the expectations of that strategy.

Ian Bremmer:

So one of the things that's been interesting to me is the fact that the Chinese of course, through all of this, are traveling so much less. And indeed the Chinese president has not left the country since January of 2020. Do you feel that Chinese leaders, Chinese elites, are themselves becoming more isolated from the rest of the world? And do you think that some of that may end up permanent even after we're done with the pandemic?

Yanzhong Huang:

Well, I think the last thing China want or Chinese leaders want is to be isolated at the international stage. I mean diplomatically, economically, and politically. Especially when other countries learn to live with the virus and that the pandemic's becoming an endemic, right? I think China cannot, will find that the zero tolerance strategy unsustainable. But it may be still able to sustain it for another one year. But I doubt it's going to take longer than one or two years. So eventually they have to abandon that approach anyway. And opening up then becomes, I think a more likely prospect.

Ian Bremmer:

Yanzhong Huang, incredibly important topic. Thanks so much for joining us today.

Yanzhong Huang:

Thank you Ian.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World podcast. Like what you've heard? Come check us out at gzeromedia.com and sign up for our newsletter, Signal.

Announcer:

The GZERO World podcast is brought to you by our founding sponsor, First Republic. First Republic, a private bank and wealth management company understands the value of service, safety, and stability in today's uncertain world. Visit firstrepublic.com to learn more.

GZERO World would also like to share a message from our friends at Foreign Policy. How can sports change the world for the better? On The Long Game, a co-production of Foreign Policy and Doha Debates, hear stories of courage and conviction, both on and off the field, directly from athletes themselves. If Ibtihaj Muhammad, Olympic medalist and global change agent hosts The Long Game, hear new episodes every week on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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