2022.04.18 中国代价高昂的例外主义

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GLOBAL
China’s Costly Exceptionalism
The country’s recent experience should wake its leaders to the potential pitfalls of “zero COVID.”

By Michael Schuman
Medical workers put on protective suits.
Yin Liqin / China News Service / Getty
APRIL 18, 2022, 4:09 AM ET

America has long thought itself exceptional, a blessed place destined to bring freedom to the world. China has an even longer history of self-proclaimed exceptionalism and, spurred by its many modern achievements, is more assertively promoting its brand of governance as a model for the world. The widening confrontation between the United States and China is thus becoming a “clash of exceptionalisms.”

From the Chinese viewpoint, the country’s successful containment of the coronavirus over the past two years is incontrovertible evidence of its system’s superiority, especially when compared with the performance of its democratic rival. While wave after wave of the virus has pummeled the U.S. and other open societies, claiming millions of lives, China’s authoritarian state has kept cases at or near zero, ensuring its 1.4 billion people have been safe, sound, and employed. This “zero COVID” policy has become a slogan for China’s emerging greatness. The higher the death toll has risen in the U.S., the more capable—even caring—the Communist regime can be portrayed as.


It’s a good story, told again and again by China’s propaganda machine. And the zero-COVID policy has undoubtedly saved countless lives. Yet with China now gripped by its worst-ever COVID outbreak, that narrative—and the country’s political and economic system—is coming under severe strain.

Shanghai, China’s financial capital, has been largely locked down for more than two weeks, and residents have struggled to procure food. In Guangzhou, a major business hub in the country’s south, local officials are converting a convention center that is home to the famous Canton Fair into an emergency COVID hospital. Across the country, cities are imposing anti-epidemic restrictions, and households are hoarding supplies, fearing they will be locked down next. In Wuhan, the pandemic’s original epicenter, residents are required to have a negative COVID test to ride the subway.

China’s latest COVID crisis still makes the country exceptional, but in the sense of being an outlier. While much of the rest of the world has learned to live with the coronavirus—for good or ill—Chinese officials are still locking down cities, testing tens of millions of residents, and chasing down case after individual case, as they were two years ago. Somehow China will have to find new ways to cope, like everybody else. Rather than a mark of authoritarian superiority, Beijing’s zero-COVID policy is becoming a test of the Communist Party’s competence and confidence in the face of the pandemic’s changing reality.


“Zero COVID” may ultimately serve as a lesson for Beijing in the perils of exceptionalism. Americans have come to realize that their own belief in their nation’s mission comes with great cost in lives, money, and reputation; for many, failed wars and heavy burdens abroad have come to outweigh the benefits of upholding democratic values and global interests. China’s recent COVID experience should wake its leaders to the potential pitfalls of exceptionalism, because their country, too, is paying the price of self-promotion.

The chinese have defined themselves as special people from the earliest days of their recorded history. Already in deep antiquity, the Chinese perceived their civilization as superior to all others. In their view, Chinese civilization was civilization; those who failed to appreciate this simple truth were “barbarians.” That self-assertion filtered into China’s foreign affairs for 2,000 years. The imperial dynasties viewed the world as a hierarchy of peoples and states, with China at its apex. The emperors had no equals—all other rulers were subordinates, or “vassals,” and were expected to acknowledge the superiority of China and its civilization (at least ceremonially) through “tribute missions.”

This Chinese worldview crumbled in the late 19th century. In a disastrous confrontation with Western powers, Chinese leaders came to doubt not just their civilization’s superiority but its very value in the modern world. For a century, they borrowed ideas from abroad—communism, capitalism, constitutions—in a quest to restore lost power.

Now, with the Chinese rebuilding their wealth and influence, that age-old self-perception of exceptionalism is resurfacing. Xi Jinping’s regime actively promotes its autocratic political, social, and economic system as a better form of governance for other countries. And Beijing can make a pretty good case, with its stellar record of economic development. As democracies in the West have become paralyzed by polarization, China’s system has often appeared more efficient, effective, and strategic. President Joe Biden can barely squeeze legislation through Congress; Xi is busily planning for decades to come.

The success of zero-COVID fits neatly into this narrative. The numbers speak for themselves. Almost 1 million Americans have been reported to have died from COVID-19 compared with only 4,641 Chinese, according to Beijing's official count, though that figure has generated suspicion the government is not fully reporting deaths. Officials have just reported the first COVID deaths in Shanghai since the start of that city's pandemic. Beijing’s recipe of quick quarantines, mass testing, and high-tech tracking has shown off capabilities other governments can’t hope to match.

This has been a regular feature of Beijing’s messaging to the world, as China’s officials, media, and proponents launched a campaign to capitalize on the success of zero-COVID to characterize the Communist government as a responsible great power that cares for its people and the global community, much more than those self-righteous democracies. Hu Xijin, then editor of the Communist Party–run Global Times, proclaimed in mid-2021 that the normalcy of life in China amid the pandemic was “a display of the competitiveness of China’s approach of governance.” The financier Eric Li, in a December essay, compared COVID death totals between China and major democracies to contend that the Chinese governance system—which he characterized as a “socialist democracy”—is a better form of democracy than what the liberal West offers. “What kind of democracy would sacrifice millions of lives for some individuals’ freedom not to wear masks?” he wrote. “It is precisely in this way that liberal democracy is failing its citizens.”

However, the recent outbreaks, and the government’s stumbles in handling them, paint a different picture: of an incapable and uncaring regime. COVID cases have erupted across the country, from the tech hub of Shenzhen in the far south to Jilin province on the northeast border with North Korea. Hardest hit has been Shanghai, where the number of confirmed cases has surpassed that of the original outbreak in Wuhan. The government has trotted out its usual COVID-busting formula—locking residents into their homes, testing them repetitively, and isolating each positive case. So far, these tactics have not stemmed the surge, but they have succeeded in depriving many of the city’s 25 million residents of food. Because people are unable to leave their apartments or receive regular deliveries, the longer the lockdown has been extended, the hungrier the city has grown. “You cannot get food, at all,” a Shanghai lawyer tweeted in early April. “No vegetables No fruit No rice No bread Nothing.”

The proud people of Shanghai are not taking this lying down (or locked in). They have vented an unusual level of anger toward the Communist government, and especially toward inhumane aspects of the zero-tolerance approach. Protesters have demanded food and freedom, defiantly posting their confrontations with authorities on social media. Some have resorted to screaming out of their windows. A special target is the government’s practice of separating COVID-positive children from their parents. Widely circulated stories of elderly and sick people dying in their apartments because they were unable to get an ambulance or medical care have generated sympathy and anger.

Shanghai authorities, not totally immune to public criticism, have scrambled to assuage the growing discontent by permitting more food deliveries and announcing exceptions to family separations. But for the most part, the government has become more draconian in imposing its strictures. Even as conditions in Shanghai deteriorated, Xi Jinping said in mid-April China must stick to the zero-COVID policy and pandemic controls would not be relaxed.

That the communist party is willing to cause a humanitarian crisis in the name of preventing a humanitarian crisis says a lot about the motivations behind its zero-COVID policy. The fact is, the government has real and legitimate concerns about what might happen without it. China still has more than 50 million residents over 60 who are not fully vaccinated and are therefore especially vulnerable in an uncontrolled outbreak. Loosening up would risk quickly overwhelming the health-care system, which is ill-equipped for a raging pandemic: China has only one-sixth the intensive-care-unit capacity of the U.S. and less than one-fifth the number of nurses on a per-capita basis, according to a January report by Morgan Stanley. Signs of strain are apparent in Shanghai. Videos purportedly of a children’s COVID ward that emerged on Chinese social media showed sick babies stacked up in cribs with a handful of obviously harried adults attempting to care for them. Under such conditions, the possibility that COVID, if unchecked, could kill millions in China is very real.

Xi compounded this already grim situation with his pursuit of Chinese exceptionalism. To promote China’s technology, and along with it global influence, Beijing chose to vaccinate its population with only homemade jabs. The Chinese vaccines are based on older technology than Western competitors’ and are known to be less effective, especially against the more recent coronavirus variants. A study by two Hong Kong universities released in December showed that even three shots of China’s popular Sinovac vaccine were insufficient to protect against the Omicron variant. Xi thus left his population undervaccinated and vulnerable, and it was clearly political. Fosun Pharma, a major Chinese drugmaker, could have manufactured the more effective BioNTech vaccine for China as part of a partnership with the German firm, and planned to build a factory large enough to churn out 1 billion doses annually. Fosun distributed the BioNTech vaccine in Hong Kong, but Beijing’s regulators never approved it for use on the mainland.

Vaccines are not a cure-all, as we’ve seen around the world. But a better-vaccinated populace might have allowed Xi more flexibility on managing COVID policy. Instead, he finds himself shutting down major business and industrial centers in an already sagging economy. No less a figure than the premier, Li Keqiang, has issued repeated warnings about the risks to economic growth in recent days. Political threats lurk here too. Economic-growth rates are a statistic often touted by Beijing as proof of Communist competence. The party has traditionally worried that downturns could be dangerous.

But so are rising COVID case totals. In a sense, Xi is boxed in by the way the party justifies its rule: Meeting numerical targets it can brag about. Having boasted about zero COVID as a mark of Chinese superiority, both at home and abroad, Xi might see the policy’s demise, or even softening, as a political and diplomatic embarrassment. Xi, as the country’s dominant political figure, has also been intimately connected to zero COVID, so an uncontrolled outbreak could tarnish him politically and personally. The current turmoil comes at an especially sensitive political moment. This fall, at a major Communist Party congress, he will attempt to break with modern precedent and claim a third term in power. Rising COVID cases, faltering economic growth, and resentful cities are bad news for any politician, even an unelected one.

The leadership realizes it needs to chart a way out, but it hasn’t yet found one. Xi has looked to limit the impact of his zero-COVID mandate in the hope of meeting his lofty economic-growth targets, yet he and his team are leaving no doubt that zero COVID remains the priority. In early April, three Shanghai officials were sacked for an overly lax attitude toward COVID control. That will hardly create an environment that encourages moderation or experimentation.

It's not clear at the moment whether China’s government will be able to manage the latest outbreaks. Its measures are so strict that, given more time, they may be successful. There is also a chance that the zero-COVID policy remains in force officially while, on the ground, the Communist Party fights a losing battle with Mother Nature. Either way, the zero-COVID policy is transforming China from a paragon to a prison. China is stuck in the pandemic’s past, its people still locked down within both their homes and their borders.

The Chinese believe the U.S. botched its pandemic response by placing politics and ideology over saving lives. But Xi Jinping has been guilty of much the same, choosing his political ambitions at home and abroad over the public welfare. In that, China is certainly no exception.




全球
中国代价高昂的例外主义
中国最近的经验应该使其领导人清醒地认识到 "零COVID "的潜在隐患。

作者：迈克尔-舒曼
医务人员穿上防护服。
尹丽琴/中国新闻社/盖蒂
2022年4月18日，美国东部时间上午4:09

长期以来，美国一直认为自己很特别，是一个注定要为世界带来自由的福地。中国自称特殊主义的历史甚至更长，而且在其许多现代成就的刺激下，正更加坚定地推动其治理品牌成为世界的典范。因此，美国和中国之间不断扩大的对抗正在成为一场 "特殊主义的冲突"。

在中国看来，该国在过去两年中成功遏制了冠状病毒，这无可争议地证明了其制度的优越性，尤其是与民主对手的表现相比。当一波又一波的病毒袭击美国和其他开放社会，夺走数百万人的生命时，中国的专制国家一直将病例保持在或接近零，确保其14亿人安全、健康和就业。这种 "零COVID "政策已经成为中国新兴伟大的口号。美国的死亡人数越高，共产党政权就越有能力，甚至越有爱心，可以被描绘成。


这是一个好故事，被中国的宣传机器反复讲述。而且，"0-COVID "政策无疑拯救了无数生命。然而，随着中国现在被其有史以来最严重的COVID爆发所笼罩，这种说法以及该国的政治和经济体系正面临严重的压力。

中国的金融之都上海已经被封锁了两个多星期，居民们一直在为采购食物而努力。在该国南部的一个主要商业中心广州，当地官员正在将一个举办著名的广交会的会议中心改建为一个紧急的COVID医院。在全国范围内，各城市正在实施防疫限制，家庭正在囤积物资，担心他们下一步会被封锁。在该大流行病的最初震中武汉，居民必须在COVID测试中获得阴性才能乘坐地铁。

中国最新的COVID危机仍然使该国成为一个特殊的国家，但在这个意义上，它是一个异类。当世界上其他大部分国家已经学会与冠状病毒共处--不管是好是坏--中国官员仍然在封锁城市，测试数千万居民，并追捕一个又一个的病例，就像他们两年前一样。中国将不得不以某种方式找到新的方法来应对，就像其他国家一样。北京的 "零COVID "政策不是专制优越性的标志，而是成为对共产党在面对大流行病不断变化的现实时的能力和信心的考验。


"零COVID "最终可能成为北京在例外主义的危险方面的一个教训。美国人已经意识到，他们自己对国家使命的信念是以生命、金钱和名誉为代价的；对许多人来说，失败的战争和沉重的海外负担已经超过了维护民主价值和全球利益的好处。中国最近的COVID经历应该让其领导人清醒地认识到例外主义的潜在陷阱，因为他们的国家也在为自我宣传付出代价。

中国人从有史以来就把自己定义为特殊民族。早在遥远的古代，中国人就认为他们的文明优于其他所有文明。在他们看来，中国文明就是文明；那些不能理解这一简单事实的人是 "野蛮人"。两千年来，这种自我主张一直渗透到中国的外交事务中。各个皇朝把世界看成是一个民族和国家的等级制度，而中国处于其顶点。皇帝没有平等的地位--所有其他统治者都是下属或 "附庸"，并被期望通过 "朝贡任务 "承认中国及其文明的优越性（至少在仪式上）。

这种中国的世界观在19世纪末崩溃了。在与西方列强的灾难性对抗中，中国领导人不仅开始怀疑他们的文明的优越性，而且怀疑它在现代世界的价值。一个世纪以来，他们从国外借鉴思想--共产主义、资本主义、宪法--寻求恢复失去的权力。

现在，随着中国人重建他们的财富和影响力，这种古老的特殊主义的自我认知正在重新出现。习近平政权积极宣传其专制的政治、社会和经济制度，认为这是其他国家更好的治理方式。北京可以用其经济发展的辉煌记录来证明这一点。当西方的民主国家因两极分化而陷入瘫痪时，中国的制度往往显得更加高效、有效和具有战略性。乔-拜登总统几乎无法在国会中挤出立法；而习近平则忙于为未来几十年做计划。

0-COVID的成功恰好符合这种说法。数字本身就说明了问题。据报道，近100万美国人死于COVID-19，而根据中国政府的官方统计，只有4,641名中国人死于COVID-19，尽管这一数字引起了人们对政府没有完全报告死亡的怀疑。官员们刚刚报告了自上海大流行开始以来的第一批COVID死亡病例。北京的快速隔离、大规模测试和高科技追踪的秘诀，显示了其他政府无法企及的能力。

这一直是北京向世界传递信息的一个常规特征，因为中国的官员、媒体和支持者发起了一场运动，利用零感染的成功，将共产党政府描述为一个负责任的大国，关心其人民和全球社会，比那些自以为是的民主国家更关心。胡锡进，当时是共产党经营的《环球时报》的编辑，在2021年中期宣称，中国在大流行病中的正常生活是 "展示了中国治理方法的竞争力。" 金融家Eric Li在12月的一篇文章中，比较了中国和主要民主国家的COVID死亡人数，认为中国的治理体系--他称之为 "社会主义民主"--是一种比西方自由主义国家更好的民主形式。"他写道："什么样的民主会为了某些人不戴面具的自由而牺牲数百万人的生命？"正是以这种方式，自由主义民主正在辜负其公民。"

然而，最近的疫情，以及政府在处理这些疫情时的失误，描绘了一幅不同的画面：一个无能且无情的政权。COVID病例在全国各地爆发，从最南部的科技中心深圳到东北与朝鲜交界的吉林省。受影响最严重的是上海，那里的确诊病例数量已经超过了最初在武汉爆发时的数量。政府已经拿出了其惯用的COVID破坏方案--把居民关在家里，反复测试，并隔离每个阳性病例。到目前为止，这些策略并没有阻止疫情激增，但它们成功地剥夺了该市2500万居民的食物。由于人们无法离开他们的公寓，也无法收到定期交付的食物，封锁的时间越长，城市的饥饿感就越强。4月初，一位上海律师在推特上写道："你根本无法得到食物，"。"没有蔬菜，没有水果，没有大米，没有面包，什么都没有。"

骄傲的上海人民并没有接受这个事实（或被锁在里面）。他们对共产党政府发泄了不同寻常的愤怒，特别是对零容忍做法的不人道方面。抗议者要求食物和自由，在社交媒体上发布他们与当局的对峙。一些人不惜从窗户里大喊大叫。一个特别的目标是政府将COVID阳性的儿童与他们的父母分开的做法。广为流传的老人和病人因无法得到救护车或医疗护理而死在公寓里的故事，引起了人们的同情和愤怒。

上海当局并非完全不受公众批评的影响，它争先恐后地通过允许更多的食物运送和宣布家庭分离的例外情况来平息日益增长的不满情绪。但在大多数情况下，政府在实施其严格规定方面变得更加严厉。即使在上海的情况恶化时，习近平在4月中旬说，中国必须坚持零COVID政策，大流行病控制不会放松。

共产党愿意以防止人道主义危机的名义造成人道主义危机，这说明其零COVID政策背后的动机是非常明显的。事实是，政府对没有这个政策可能发生的事情有着真实而合理的担忧。中国仍有5000多万60岁以上的居民没有完全接种疫苗，因此在不受控制的疫情中特别容易受到伤害。放宽限制将有可能使保健系统迅速不堪重负，而保健系统没有能力应对一场肆虐的大流行病。根据摩根士丹利1月的一份报告，中国的重症监护室容量只有美国的六分之一，人均护士人数不到五分之一。压力的迹象在上海很明显。中国社交媒体上出现的据称是COVID儿童病房的视频显示，生病的婴儿堆积在婴儿床里，有几个明显疲惫不堪的成年人在试图照顾他们。在这种情况下，如果不加以控制，COVID可能会在中国杀死数百万人，这种可能性是非常真实的。

习近平以其对中国特殊主义的追求使这一已经严峻的形势变得更加复杂。为了促进中国的技术，以及随之而来的全球影响力，中国政府选择只用自制的疫苗为其人口接种。中国的疫苗是基于比西方竞争者更古老的技术，而且已知效果较差，特别是对较新的冠状病毒变种。两所香港大学在12月发布的一项研究表明，即使是三针中国流行的Sinovac疫苗也不足以保护人们免受Omicron变体的侵害。因此，习近平让他的人民没有接种疫苗，而且很脆弱，这显然是政治性的。作为与德国公司合作的一部分，中国大型制药商复星医药可以为中国生产更有效的BioNTech疫苗，并计划建造一个足以每年生产10亿剂的工厂。复星在香港销售BioNTech疫苗，但北京的监管机构从未批准它在大陆使用。

正如我们在世界各地看到的那样，疫苗并不是万能的。但是，如果民众接受了更好的疫苗接种，可能会让习近平在管理COVID政策方面有更大的灵活性。相反，他发现自己在一个已经下沉的经济中关闭了主要的商业和工业中心。最近几天，国务院总理李克强多次就经济增长的风险发出警告。这里也潜伏着政治威胁。经济增长率是中国政府经常吹捧的一项统计数字，以证明共产党的能力。该党历来担心经济下滑会带来危险。

但COVID案件总数的增加也是如此。从某种意义上说，习近平被该党为其统治辩护的方式所束缚。满足它可以吹嘘的数字目标。习近平曾吹嘘零COVID是中国在国内和国外的优势标志，他可能会认为该政策的消亡，甚至软化，是一种政治和外交上的尴尬。习近平作为中国的主要政治人物，也与 "无核化 "密切相关，因此，不受控制的爆发会在政治上和个人上给他抹黑。目前的动荡发生在一个特别敏感的政治时刻。今年秋天，在一次重要的共产党代表大会上，他将试图打破现代先例，要求第三次执政。不断上升的COVID案件、摇摇欲坠的经济增长和充满怨恨的城市对任何政治家来说都是坏消息，即使是未经选举的政治家。

领导层意识到它需要找到一条出路，但它还没有找到。习近平希望限制他的零COVID任务的影响，以实现其高远的经济增长目标，但他和他的团队没有留下任何疑问，零COVID仍然是首要任务。4月初，三名上海官员因对COVID控制态度过于宽松而被解雇。这很难创造一个鼓励节制或实验的环境。

目前还不清楚中国政府是否有能力管理最新的疫情。它的措施非常严格，如果有更多的时间，它们可能会成功。也有一种可能性是，零COVID政策在官方仍然有效，而在实地，中国共产党与大自然进行了一场失败的斗争。无论如何，零COVID政策正在将中国从一个典范转变为一个监狱。中国停留在大流行病的过去，它的人民仍然被锁在他们的家里和他们的边界内。

中国人认为，美国将政治和意识形态置于拯救生命之上，从而搞砸了其大流行病应对措施。但习近平也犯了同样的错误，他在国内和国外选择他的政治野心而不是公共福利。在这方面，中国当然也不例外。