NEWS//Is dissatisfaction growing in China?

Is frustration over China's handling of the COVID-19 epidemic -- coupled with other frustrations with the government -- growing?

The New York Times reported at the end of March,

Students have flooded social media to organize donations for Chinese doctors battling the coronavirus epidemic. Workers have marched in the streets to demand compensation for weeks of unemployment during citywide lockdowns. Young citizen journalists have taken to YouTube to call for free speech. The coronavirus outbreak has mobilized young people in China, sounding a call to action for a generation that had shown little resistance to the ruling Communist Party’s agenda.

Yuqi Na, a course instructor at Fordham University wrote about mounting calls in China for better government care, "The lack of government transparency, a censored press, inequality and the shortage of medical resources are longstanding problems in China. Coronavirus brought them to the fore, and, if only for a brief moment, the Chinese people demanded better" (NationalInterest.org).

Bill Bishop, in Sinocism, has revealed that Ren Zhiqiang, a member of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, is "under investigation" in China due to an article he wrote that was sharply critical of President Xi.'s handling of the epidemic. Ren described President Xi's speech on February 23rd this way,

Standing there was not some Emperor showing us his "new clothes”, but a clown with no clothes on who was still determined to play emperor. Even though he was clutching some rags in an attempt to cover up the fact he wasn’t wearing any clothes, he couldn’t cover up his ambition to be emperor, and his ambition to destroy whoever might want to stop him… (Read Ren’s entire article here.)

However, Dan Chen, an assistant professor at the University of Richmond, senses that many Chinese are satisfied with the way China brought the coronavirus under control.

My conversations indicate that some Chinese citizens feel relieved by the tough measures to bring the crisis under control. Of course, measures that allow the government further control over the Chinese population, such as technological surveillance and watchful neighborhood committees, may become institutionalized. Concerns over privacy, for example, were largely subdued by the fear of the virus. But China’s ultimate success in managing the spread of the virus may actually build popular trust in the government, rather than undermining it (Washington Post).

Sources: New York Times, National Interest, Washington Post, Breitbart