Roving Periscope: Is China following a ‘scorched earth’ policy on Covid-19?

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: The way it rode the roughshod and stonewalled all attempts to investigate the cases when Covid-19 broke out in 2020, and then across the world, China’s current tactics and strategy have given rise to speculations whether it might be following a ‘scorched earth’ policy— a military strategy that aims to destroy anything that might be useful to the enemy.

For, at home, Beijing suddenly abolished the three-year-old Zero Covid policy, leaving millions of immunity-lacking Chinese exposed to the deadly virus while thousands died in ill-equipped medical facilities in the last 20 days. Moreover, from January 7, Beijing has removed restrictions on the Chinese people’s international travels and eased passport procedures to facilitate their journey abroad, which could potentially infect others in their host countries.

The media reports suggest that although many Chinese exposed to the virus might still develop herd immunity, their government could also let inadequately vaccinated and vulnerable elderly people die while it forced youngsters to return to work.

Since many among the panicked global travelers are unlikely to visit China now, Beijing is indirectly opening the world to the ‘infected’ Chinese, who have queued up in large numbers outside passport and visa offices across the country. Reports said the number of international Chinese travelers’ registrations has suddenly shot up by 250 percent in the last 20 days, showing how desperate they are to leave their country, currently facing the worst-ever Covid catastrophe.

Despite millions infected and thousands dying, the Communist regime has completely banned sharing of Covid data with the outside world, leaving several countries worried.

India is also contemplating travel restrictions from next month and is worried that the virus might create a wave soon thereafter. Studies showed that the virus hit east Asia surfaces in India in the next 35 to 40 days. That prompted the government to conduct mock drills across the country on December 27 to check Covid preparedness.

Other countries have also taken measures to keep the “Chinese virus” at bay.

For instance, the US, Japan, and other countries have mandated Covid-19 tests for inbound Chinese passengers, reflecting global concern that new variants could emerge in the current explosive outbreak in China, and that Beijing is unlikely to inform the world about this in time, as it did way back in early 2020.

The US, which announced a negative test requirement on Wednesday for passengers from China, cited both the surge of infections and a “lack of information”, including the genomic sequencing of the virus strains in the Asian country.

Wang Pi-Sheng, who heads Taiwan’s Epidemic Command Centre, said that uncertainty about the Chinese situation had worried his country. Taiwan will now start testing everyone arriving from China on January 1 itself, ahead of the expected return of nearly 30,000 Taiwanese for the Lunar Year holidays later next month.

Likewise, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a testing requirement for Chinese passengers this week. Japan also recorded 415 deaths due to Covid-19 on Wednesday, the highest single-day tally since 2020.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the health body required more information on the severity of the outbreak in China, particularly on hospitals and ICU admissions “in order to make a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground.”

South Korea and Italy also announced testing and other requirements for inbound Chinese passengers.

The crisis emerged after millions of angry Chinese protested on roads against the brutal Zero Covid policy in November, forcing the Communist government to suddenly roll it back and letting the waiting coronavirus spread rapidly.

The global concerns are a direct result of the Communist regime’s sudden exit from its hard-line policies, Miles Yu, Director of the China Center at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, DC, said.

“You can’t conduct the lunacy of Zero Covid lockdowns for such a long period of time…and then suddenly unleash a multitude of the infected from a caged China to the world, risking major outbreaks elsewhere.”

In China, the spiraling infections caused shortages of medicines, long queues at clinics and hospitals, corpses piling up at mortuaries and crematoria, and even corruption in letting those jump the queue for early funerals.

The world has reported and got worried, but the Chinese state-control media is following its age-old ‘all is well’ policy. It has not reported the infections and deaths and blamed the western media for bias, misreporting, political motivation, and smearing China’s “good image.”