Chengdu Fears Shanghai Repeat as Cities Fall to Xi’s Covid Zero

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(Bloomberg) -- Just before midday on Thursday, the government of China’s southwestern megacity of Chengdu told its 21 million residents they would be locked down starting at 6 p.m. that evening, as officials raced to stamp out a growing Covid-19 outbreak.

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That left just six hours for residents to prepare for what many feared would be a reprise of the grueling two-month lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year, which saw food shortages and widespread misery in one of China’s richest cities.

Hu, a 45-year-old state-owned enterprise employee, and his family immediately started packing, aiming to leave their Chengdu city apartment for a bigger residence in the suburbs to ride out whatever would come. “That countryside house would be a more spacious one where my family and I can do some outdoors activities in the garden during the lockdown,” said Hu, who asked to be identified by his last name due to a fear of speaking out.

Elsewhere in the city, known for its panda sanctuary, supermarket shelves were cleaned out while anxious motorists filled the roads trying to get home. As in Shanghai, the local government gave no information on when the lockdown would lift -- only that there would be at least three days of mass testing between Sept. 1 and 4.

Drastic Turn

That panic underscores how life in China’s megacities -- of which there are 17 with populations of 10 million people or more -- has taken a drastic turn this year with the arrival of more transmissible variants. While infections are far lower than in many other countries, officials follow a playbook of early and strict lockdowns to cut off transmission chains.

Why China Is Sticking With Its Covid Zero Strategy: QuickTake

Despite the growing economic costs, President Xi Jinping has doubled down on the approach, saying that the lives saved by his Covid Zero policy is worth the disruption. There’s additional pressure to tame flareups in the runup to the Chinese Communist Party congress later this year, when Xi is expected to secure a precedent-breaking third term as leader.

Chengdu has found over 900 cases in 10 days and other cities have locked down over just one infection. Shanghai, the country’s main financial hub, had originally planned eight days of mass testing, but as infections piled up, the lockdown stretched out.

Cutting Down

Tim, a freelancer, and his wife spent the afternoon ordering from multiple online apps to secure enough food, rather than fight the crowds in person. They also decided to cut down on portion sizes so the ingredients they had could last longer.

“While I’m not too worried it will escalate to what happened in Shanghai, I don’t see it coming under control within the short term either,” he said.

The capital of Sichuan province is the fourth Chinese megacity to be locked down this year, compared to just two in all of 2021, and none in 2020 after the Wuhan crisis died down. Chengdu is the biggest city since Shanghai to be locked down, and its plight has drawn nationwide attention, with the topic getting nearly 500 million views as of 4pm Thursday on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform.

Many expressed resignation, as recurrent lockdowns, continuous testing and stringent contact-tracing becomes entrenched in everyday Chinese lives.

“It’s so hard, I’m lying flat and going to sleep now,” said Roxie Huang, using a popular term that refers to the ennui faced by young people, who responded to a sense of powerlessness with indifference. “A lot of the behavior in the pandemic era doesn’t really have a rational cause,” Huang said. “It’s hopeless.”

Read more: Chinese State Media Defend Covid Zero, Warn Against ‘Lying Flat’

The runup to Chengdu’s snap lockdown announcement had eerie similarities to what happened in Shanghai. In both cities, people were arrested by the authorities for inciting panic by spreading “rumors” about impending restrictions, only for officials to take those very steps just a few days later.

‘Widespread Impact’

Nevertheless, Chengdu is a less economically important city than Shanghai -- it accounts for 1.7% of the country’s gross domestic production, compared to Shanghai’s 3.8%. While home to technology companies and automakers, including Toyota Motor Corp. and VW China, Chengdu is located in the less developed and wealthy western region.

“We don’t expect a Shanghai-style setback,” wrote David Qu, a China economist at Bloomberg Economics, in a note Thursday. “We do expect a widespread impact on sentiment that amplifies the damage beyond the direct hit to activity.”

That said, there’s now even bigger downside risks to the third-quarter growth forecast of 4.5%, he wrote.

Read more: Shanghai’s Two-Month Lockdown Is Still Rippling Through Economy

For Chengdu residents, uncertainty reigns. While Shanghai is the worst-case scenario, other megacities like the southern technology hub of Shenzhen emerged from their lockdowns in just a week.

Still, as long as Xi’s Covid Zero policy remains, one thing is for sure in China: more lockdowns.

“It’s completely a mess now, the earliest rumor was the lockdown is going to be 3 days and nobody actually believed that,” said Hu, who fled to his surburban house. “And what I now hear now is that it will be 10 days. But who knows?” he said, adding. “Wherever the virus lands, the ground will burn.”

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