China’s Endless Zero-COVID Nightmare

Welcome to today’s Morning Brief, where we’re looking at anguish over China’s zero-COVID policy, Russia’s escalating attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and Ethiopia’s peace talks. 

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Any hopes that China would adopt a new pandemic strategy were crushed on Saturday when officials vowed to stick to a zero-COVID policy, even as the harsh approach fuels outrage and discontent among the public. 

Beijing’s adherence to zero-COVID spells continued anguish for Chinese citizens, who have grown increasingly frustrated under nearly three years of forced lockdowns, mass testing, and travel restrictions that have completely upended public life.

Since the pandemic first began, authorities have enforced zero-COVID with an inflexible, one-size-fits-all approach—with devastating results. Last week, lockdown restrictions in Lanzhou prevented a father from securing medical assistance for his sick 3-year-old son for almost two hours. When his son eventually reached the nearby hospital, he died of carbon monoxide poisoning; the hospital was only a 10-minute car ride away. 

It’s one of many cases that illustrate the incalculable human costs of Beijing’s rigid policy. A 55-year-old woman reportedly jumped to her death after being locked down last week, while 27 people being sent to mandatory quarantine were killed in a bus crash in September. In the city of Chengdu, workers forced locked-down residents to stay indoors even as an earthquake struck.

Just last week, authorities also trapped as many as 200,000 workers employed in China’s “iPhone City” to quash a COVID-19 outbreak, reflecting the extreme lengths authorities are willing to go to in order to stamp out the virus. 

As Beijing sticks to its aggressive approach, China’s youth are confronting uncertainty and despair. “For a generation of young Chinese whose lives have been reshaped by the zero-COVID policy, the disease often seems less of a threat than the government,” Tracy Wen Liu argued in Foreign Policy. 

“It’s almost impossible for most ordinary people to live even an average life under all the strict rules and regulations,” Xu, a Chinese woman in her 20s, told her. “It takes extraordinary amounts of effort to be ordinary.”

Russia targets Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Russia is set to ramp up its attacks on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure as millions of people face power blackouts. Moscow’s assault has already devastated 40 percent of the country’s electrical grid. 

“We also understand that the terrorist state is concentrating forces and means for a possible repetition of mass attacks on our infrastructure. First of all, energy,” Zelensky said. 

Egyptian activist’s hunger strike. Alaa Abd el-Fattah, a detained British Egyptian pro-democracy activist, has gone on hunger strike, sparking a diplomatic crisis between Britain and Egypt. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on Monday and raised the activist’s case, but there has reportedly been no progress toward securing his release. Abd el-Fattah, who was a key player in the Arab Spring, is now refusing water. According to John Casson, a former U.K. ambassador to Egypt, “the next 24 to 48 hours are crucial.”

Ethiopia’s peace talks. Delegates representing the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front began negotiations on Monday to determine the terms of a truce that was signed last week, with plans to address issues of disarmament, humanitarian assistance, and monitoring processes. They also set up a hotline to help improve communications over preserving the cease-fire. 

Latin American leaders meet. The leaders of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru will meet in Mexico City later this month, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced on Monday. It is unclear whether Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will join. 

Tanzania’s plane crash. Nineteen people were killed when a passenger plane crashed into Lake Victoria, Africa’s largest lake, on Sunday. The plane had 43 people on board. Tanzanian authorities are conducting a rescue operation and an investigation into what happened. 

Feeling anxious or stressed? Some people are finding solace by digging holes, the Wall Street Journal reports. Scientists, inventors, and artists have long used the activity to help clear their heads and troubleshoot difficult problems. 

For others, digging up sand can simply be a good way to unwind. Charlie Mone, a student and an avid hole-digger in Scotland, told the Journal that the activity is “just relaxing” for him and his friends. “We were there on the beach and we thought, ‘Well, what else are you going to do?’” he said. “So we started to dig.”