China targets tech giants to quell protests

Xi Jinping’s zero-covid policy may be crumbling in the face of resistance as more cities start to open up

‘China is speeding up to cast aside large-scale lockdowns’

THE Chinese government has ordered tech companies to hire more censors as its crackdown on nationwide protests over strict Covid rules intensified.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, which sets the strict rules governing internet use, yesterday issued guidance to tech giants including Tencent and Tiktok owner Bytedance, calling on them to pay closer attention to information being shared about the protests, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Officials were also instructed to tell Chinese search engines to block searches for virtual private networks (VPNS), which are used to access banned sites like Twitter, where people have shared footage and pictures of protests.

Of particular interest to the censors were details of protests at Chinese universities, as well as online discussion of the fire that killed 10 people in the locked down city of Urumqi, Xinjiang, last Friday. The deadly blaze was a catalyst for clashes and protests across the country which took aim at China’s draconian Covid laws.

In a sign Xi Jinping’s signature zerocovid policy may be crumbling, quarantine and testing requirements will be eased in some cities.

Several cities, including Shanghai and Guangzhou, have gradually begun to relax district lockdowns, allowing businesses to reopen, giving exemptions from daily tests, and allowing some infected people including pregnant mothers to quarantine at home.

Home isolation for the infected is a significant change to China’s Covid rules. Earlier this year, entire communities were locked down for weeks at a time, sometimes after just a single positive test result.

The authorities will also launch a new drive to improve accessibility to vaccines and encourage the elderly and vulnerable to take the jab through targeted programmes in nursing homes and leisure facilities.

Protesters believe long-running Covid restrictions, which have not prevented national cases from rising, contributed to the deaths, which included multiple children.

The authorities have denied this, but Sun Chunlan, the Chinese vice premier, signalled that the government may be caving to pressure, announcing on Wednesday that a “new situation” required “new tasks”.

Ms Sun, a central figure in overseeing the pandemic response, told the National Health Commission that the Omicron variant’s ability to cause disease was weakening.

“The country is facing a new situation and new tasks in epidemic prevention and control as the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus weakens, more people are vaccinated and experience in containing the virus is accumulated,” she said, according to a Reuters report.

She made no mention of the zerocovid policy in her latest remarks, suggesting a path may be opening up out of a strict approach to pandemic prevention that has disrupted the economy and daily life.

The message was backed up by state media, including the Global Times, which published an exclusive stating that Chinese researchers had proven that the Omicron variant was less dangerous than earlier Covid strains.

Hu Xijin, the former Global Times editor who remains a high-profile procommunist party commentator on social media, tweeted that the new policy meant “China is speeding up to cast aside large-scale lockdowns”.

As well as assuaging public fears about the danger posed by the virus, the authorities will have to contend with widespread hesitancy among key groups. In the capital, Beijing, several districts announced that people who stay at home and don’t need to go to public places can opt out of daily nucleic acid tests, while multiple shopping centres said they would open their doors again.