Covid protests in China

VorZakone

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Protests against strict Covid measures in China spill into a second night and spread to the biggest cities
Demonstrators gather in the capital Beijing and the financial hub Shanghai, where some called for President Xi Jinping to resign
Protesters blame Xi's zero-Covid approach, which involves mass testing, quarantines and snap lockdowns
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-asia-63776816
 

Vidyoyo

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Surprised there wasn't a thread already.

Can't see Xi stepping down but it's good to have a bit of political pressure against CCP policy, a bit like what we saw in HK in 2014 (different circumstances but I don't have much else to compare it to). Shows how modern Chinese citizens have woken up about the negative liberty put on them compared to the rest of the world.

I only hope it doesn't turn violent.
 

4bars

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It will not be changes in China as long as the economy will grow as it has been growing. When the middle class will get closer in size and comfortabilities to the western societies and they will start having the same demands and frustrations is when changes will happen. Still a long way to go
 

Sir Matt

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Despite Xi and the CCP's efforts, they clearly cannot completely control the spread of information within China. I would assume that those out protesting are primarily younger and educated, but the vast majority of the Chinese populace is ok with how things are going, if annoyed by the Zero COVID policy. Xi risked an eventual backlash to the policy, but it seems he's unwilling to back down.
 

iKnowNothing

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I don’t think the “zero covid” approach works. I’m guessing the top brass are worried of a global backlash should they not be able to control any new variants locally.
But what I’m surprised is how China has so many cases when in the general population across the world, there haven’t been significant or concerning number of cases. Are their vaccines not effective enough? Or are there a lot of people who don’t have access to vaccines?
 

do.ob

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No one pointing out the irony of calling locals, who protest against Covid measures, straight up idiots and the Chinese people that do it brave freedom fighters?
I'm aware that both descriptions seem relatively accurate, but still..
 

Pexbo

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No one pointing out the irony of calling locals, who protest against Covid measures, straight up idiots and the Chinese people that do it brave freedom fighters?
I'm aware that both descriptions seem relatively accurate, but still..
It’s called nuance.
 

nimic

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I don’t think the “zero covid” approach works. I’m guessing the top brass are worried of a global backlash should they not be able to control any new variants locally.
But what I’m surprised is how China has so many cases when in the general population across the world, there haven’t been significant or concerning number of cases. Are their vaccines not effective enough? Or are there a lot of people who don’t have access to vaccines?
They don't have that many cases. Maybe not more than anywhere else, except they are counting.
 

The Boy

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What I dont understand, and I'd be grateful if anyone could shed light on this, is why China has gone for this zero covid policy. Everyone is vaccinated, like the rest of the world, there must be significant antibodies and immunity in the population now. This policy just harms their economy and creates masive social pressure.

It must be so weird for Chinese fans watching the world cup and seeing the rest of the world carry on as normal. So why the policy?
 

Ladron de redcafe

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No one pointing out the irony of calling locals, who protest against Covid measures, straight up idiots and the Chinese people that do it brave freedom fighters?
I'm aware that both descriptions seem relatively accurate, but still..
Yeah it's funny seeing that. "Brave folks fighting against the bad government trying to restrict their freedom" sounds like something out of the Q-Anon'ers in 2020.
 

utdalltheway

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What I dont understand, and I'd be grateful if anyone could shed light on this, is why China has gone for this zero covid policy. Everyone is vaccinated, like the rest of the world, there must be significant antibodies and immunity in the population now. This policy just harms their economy and creates masive social pressure.

It must be so weird for Chinese fans watching the world cup and seeing the rest of the world carry on as normal. So why the policy?
There’s been some discussion on that subject in the regular covid thread just these past few days.
 

phelans shorts

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No one pointing out the irony of calling locals, who protest against Covid measures, straight up idiots and the Chinese people that do it brave freedom fighters?
I'm aware that both descriptions seem relatively accurate, but still..
The context of what the two are actually protesting.
 

Samid

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I don’t think the “zero covid” approach works. I’m guessing the top brass are worried of a global backlash should they not be able to control any new variants locally.
But what I’m surprised is how China has so many cases when in the general population across the world, there haven’t been significant or concerning number of cases. Are their vaccines not effective enough? Or are there a lot of people who don’t have access to vaccines?
Think I read that pure cases wise this year probably has been as bad as ever, it’s just that no one is keeping track anymore. Due to vaccines and immunities developed countries are just treating it as a seasonal flu nowadays.
 

nimic

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Think I read that pure cases wise this year probably has been as bad as ever, it’s just that no one is keeping track anymore. Due to vaccines and immunities developed countries are just treating it as a seasonal flu nowadays.
Nearly 70% of all Covid deaths in Norway have happened in 2022. Of course that does have a lot to do with the opening up of society, so relatively speaking it's perhaps "not as bad" as 2020 or 2021. I think you've got it right, it's just been decided that it's something we have to live with. There is no political pressure to shut down society either.

In fact, the growing sense is that we shut down too much when we did, and definitely as far as schools go. And that's despite the fact that we didn't shut the schools down to anywhere near the same degree as many other countries.
 

TwoSheds

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What I dont understand, and I'd be grateful if anyone could shed light on this, is why China has gone for this zero covid policy. Everyone is vaccinated, like the rest of the world, there must be significant antibodies and immunity in the population now. This policy just harms their economy and creates masive social pressure.

It must be so weird for Chinese fans watching the world cup and seeing the rest of the world carry on as normal. So why the policy?
So partly it's arrogance - they made a big deal out of how much better they dealt with the pandemic than the western democracies and it's hard to find the right time to back down. They also only gave people the Chinese vaccines because if they're Chinese they're obviously better. Then I think they realised that they have questionable effectiveness compared to the mRNA vaccines. I believe they are now working on a knock-off mRNA vaccine but I'm guessing progress is not as fast as they'd like.

But mainly it's incompetence and foolishness. It's thought that the majority of elderly people in China are not vaccinated at all, never mind if the vaccine were any good or not. The government haven't really been pushing them to get vaccinated and have seemingly been quite content to just keep assuming the lockdowns would keep them safe. At first I thought they were just waiting on a more effective vaccine but it seems like perhaps actually some of the elderly CCP twonks, including perhaps Xi himself, may actually be anti-vaxxers, albeit probably for different reasons due to China's history rather than the same online conspiracy nonsense we're fed in the west.
 

M16Red

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I don’t think the “zero covid” approach works. I’m guessing the top brass are worried of a global backlash should they not be able to control any new variants locally.
But what I’m surprised is how China has so many cases when in the general population across the world, there haven’t been significant or concerning number of cases. Are their vaccines not effective enough? Or are there a lot of people who don’t have access to vaccines?
Spoke to my missus about this last night actually, because I was thinking do they know something we don't - like 3 years are we going to be zombies or something.

She works with that part of the world lot, and was hearing about C19 in early November 2019. She said they don't have the Hospitals or Vaccines to cover all the people in the country.

A while back, they where shaving peoples heads if you was caught outside with out permission. I think the lady she was talking to hadn't been outside for longer than a hour a week for months - she had two dogs in the flat!

She did live in Wuhan though.
 

jojojo

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No one pointing out the irony of calling locals, who protest against Covid measures, straight up idiots and the Chinese people that do it brave freedom fighters?
I'm aware that both descriptions seem relatively accurate, but still..
Which locals, which COVID measures and when? Timing and context is everything.

If you want to protest about being asked to wear a mask in a hospital waiting room - a room full of sick and vulnerable people - you're either an idiot or simply extraordinarily selfish. More or less everyone is going to get COVID, trying not to give it to someone at a time when they're especially vulnerable is not a bad idea.

If you wanted to protest about the restrictions on movement and meeting people early in the pandemic then you were just plain wrong (though personally I'd have preferred strong advice to the policing measures taken in some countries). Before we understood what we were up against and before we had the vaccinated the majority of the population (and the overwhelming majority of the oldest) there were lives to be saved. The measures bought time.

The question for China is what are they buying time for? To create a wonder cure or a wonder vaccine? Are they going to slip the vaccine into the water supply to reach those who still won't want it? Three years of harsh, economy damaging and life limiting restrictions in China and they're no further than they were.
 

Sarni

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Spoke to my missus about this last night actually, because I was thinking do they know something we don't - like 3 years are we going to be zombies or something.

She works with that part of the world lot, and was hearing about C19 in early November 2019. She said they don't have the Hospitals or Vaccines to cover all the people in the country.

A while back, they where shaving peoples heads if you was caught outside with out permission. I think the lady she was talking to hadn't been outside for longer than a hour a week for months - she had two dogs in the flat!

She did live in Wuhan though.
I knew a woman from my previous work who lived in Shanghai just before pandemic kicked off in Europe in March 2020, she just returned to Krakow with her family three or four weeks before first cases were found in Poland. Because she was very close with her Chinese friends, and had usually been prone to being very condescending even prior to pandemic, basically the minute we got our first cases she kept her entire family locked up at home and called everyone who did not do the same idiots (as her knowledge about the virus, how it spreads, how dangerous it is, was vastly superior to that of any pleb that did not have 'friends in China'). She'd call me out on Facebook when I posted a pic from a walk with my dog, calling me a murderer and telling me I had blood on my hands, as she believed you should not even walk the dog (I had no backyard at the time, it is worth mentioning as I lived in a flat).

Between early March and late September they did not leave home once (N E V E R). They'd do all their groceries online, she and her husband worked from home only, kids were on homeschooling. They occasionally went to their backyard during the night when they were sure there'd be no neighbors outside. I don't know what happened after late September as she went on a mad spree then and just removed majority of her acquaintances from Facebook, so I would not be able to keep track, so no idea how long she kept on doing that after that but considering we barely had any cases until Sep 2020, and it kicked off properly around that time, I imagine she might have been locked down for quite a bit longer.
 

jojojo

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What I dont understand, and I'd be grateful if anyone could shed light on this, is why China has gone for this zero covid policy. Everyone is vaccinated, like the rest of the world, there must be significant antibodies and immunity in the population now. This policy just harms their economy and creates masive social pressure.

It must be so weird for Chinese fans watching the world cup and seeing the rest of the world carry on as normal. So why the policy?
Not everyone in China is vaccinated and unfortunately the group least likely to be vaccinated are the group who are most likely to die of COVID - the oldest. The previously very low COVID rates in China mean that most people don't have antibodies. It's still a largely immune-naive population.

Hong Kong gave us a glimpse of how quickly it can happen. It's worth noting that some people doubt the accuracy of the death rate stats - it's likely deaths in HK were underreported as it was an advantage to people to do that.


And HK had a more highly vaccinated population than mainland China. China had time to vaccinate and come out with a similar curve to countries like Japan and Australia. New Zealand, I admit, is a tough standard to reach.

It's important to look at this graph in terms of the number unvaxxed. Japan has maybe 8% of its over 80s without a third vaccine dose (and probably only a couple of percent with no doses) - for China the proportion of over 80s who are in that unprotected state is way higher. And that's before we even bring in the question of relative vaccine efficacy between the brands used.



China's spending on healthcare is relatively low and it's thought that acute care could be quickly overwhelmed, pushing death rates higher.

China has kicked the can down the road repeatedly, and people are getting tired.
 
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The Boy

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Not everyone is vaccinated and unfortunately the group least likely to be vaccinated are the group who are most likely to die of COVID - the oldest. The previously very low COVID rates in China mean that most people don't have antibodies. It's still a largely immune-naive population.

Hong Kong gave us a glimpse of how quickly it can happen. It's worth noting that some people doubt the accuracy of the death rate stats - is likely they were underreported as it was an advantage to people to do that.


And they had a more highly vaccinated pollution than mainland China.


China's spending on healthcare is relatively low and it's thought that acute care could be quickly overwhelmed, pushing death rates higher.

China has kicked the can down the road, and people are getting tired.
Thanks for this, I had no idea China had never introduced a vaccine mandate. Those Hong Kong figures are awful.
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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I was hoping that a thread would appear specifically for this. Just like I often used to do for the Russian Invasion of Ukraine thread, here's my catch-up of the day.

It will not be changes in China as long as the economy will grow as it has been growing. When the middle class will get closer in size and comfortabilities to the western societies and they will start having the same demands and frustrations is when changes will happen. Still a long way to go
One element that is a time-ticking bomb in China is the high unemployment rate among the youngest people among working-age groups (16-24). That unemployment rate is approaching 20%; it is 17.9% to be exact and still increasing. If the future of the country finds itself in a dead end, more unrest is bound to happen before things have a remote chance of getting better.

Those figures for Hong Kong gave us quite a glimpse about how awful it is within Mainland China.

Vaccine hesitancy among the elderly was not just a Chinese thing; it also exists in other Asian countries such as Japan. It took a while for Japan to get people vaccinated mainly because people wanted vaccines to be tested on a large Japanese sample before it can be distributed on a population-wide scale, but the vaccine became popular as soon as the data showed a definite effectiveness with the Japanese sample. The quality of the messaging in favor of the vaccine also matters too, especially with a very vaccine-hesitant group as the elderly. Seems to me that the messaging worked fine in Japan (as well as in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and more if we extrapolate) while Chinese medical authorities simply did not enough in the messaging. Have you noticed that Xi Jinping did not show himself in front of the cameras with the shirt sleeves up to take the jab just as Joe Biden and many other leaders did when it was time to promote vaccination? That also does not help.

Think I read that pure cases wise this year probably has been as bad as ever, it’s just that no one is keeping track anymore. Due to vaccines and immunities developed countries are just treating it as a seasonal flu nowadays.
Yep, that's pretty much it. In my home country, our governments are promoting vaccinating against the flu and against COVID. The nurse at my vaccination clinic said that people can take both vaccines at the same time if they want; it's all for free.

So partly it's arrogance - they made a big deal out of how much better they dealt with the pandemic than the western democracies and it's hard to find the right time to back down. They also only gave people the Chinese vaccines because if they're Chinese they're obviously better. Then I think they realised that they have questionable effectiveness compared to the mRNA vaccines. I believe they are now working on a knock-off mRNA vaccine but I'm guessing progress is not as fast as they'd like.

But mainly it's incompetence and foolishness. It's thought that the majority of elderly people in China are not vaccinated at all, never mind if the vaccine were any good or not. The government haven't really been pushing them to get vaccinated and have seemingly been quite content to just keep assuming the lockdowns would keep them safe. At first I thought they were just waiting on a more effective vaccine but it seems like perhaps actually some of the elderly CCP twonks, including perhaps Xi himself, may actually be anti-vaxxers, albeit probably for different reasons due to China's history rather than the same online conspiracy nonsense we're fed in the west.
The thing is that they had 2 years to get that mRNA vaccine now. I'm not an expert in vaccine development by pharmaceutical companies, but 2 years is quite a long time when you see smaller pharmaceutical companies coming with their own vaccines (some of them being mRNA vaccines) on the market as well right now. Gotta wonder if Chinese pharma have difficulties finding and compiling data for their mRNA vaccines because of the zero-COVID policy or because their sales pitch for sampling anywhere is just awful.

The fact that Xi has never shown himself to the cameras with his sleeves rolled up before taking the jab is already bad messaging. The more this goes, the more I believe several of those grumpy old men in the CCP are antivaxxers just like you said. Thank God they have not publicly promoted some stupid shit based on traditional or alternative medicine.
 
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RedDevilQuebecois

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As typical from any authoritarian regime, this is the response.

Shanghai:

Beijing:

Hong Kong:

Cops are even going after people's phones to make sure everything from the protests gets erased although plenty have already gone on Twitter, Instagram, Telegram and many more.

CCTV (China's main broadcaster) have been removing every single close-up of maskless fans at the World Cup. Here's a guy comparing the CCTV and SBS (South Korea) feeds of the same match.
 

mu4c_20le

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I don't get the hong kong video...young male grabs umbrella causing granny to fall, gets immediately arrested and taken away. What was wrong with that?
 

RedDevilQuebecois

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I don't get the hong kong video...young male grabs umbrella causing granny to fall, gets immediately arrested and taken away. What was wrong with that?
It's a pro-CCP thug using intimidation against anything and anyone using symbols against the CCP. The symbol is namely the yellow umbrella.
 

mu4c_20le

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TwoSheds

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I was hoping that a thread would appear specifically for this. Just like I often used to do for the Russian Invasion of Ukraine thread, here's my catch-up of the day.



One element that is a time-ticking bomb in China is the high unemployment rate among the youngest people among working-age groups (16-24). That unemployment rate is approaching 20%; it is 17.9% to be exact and still increasing. If the future of the country finds itself in a dead end, more unrest is bound to happen before things have a remote chance of getting better.



Those figures for Hong Kong gave us quite a glimpse about how awful it is within Mainland China.

Vaccine hesitancy among the elderly was not just a Chinese thing; it also exists in other Asian countries such as Japan. It took a while for Japan to get people vaccinated mainly because people wanted vaccines to be tested on a large Japanese sample before it can be distributed on a population-wide scale, but the vaccine became popular as soon as the data showed a definite effectiveness with the Japanese sample. The quality of the messaging in favor of the vaccine also matters too, especially with a very vaccine-hesitant group as the elderly. Seems to me that the messaging worked fine in Japan (as well as in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and more if we extrapolate) while Chinese medical authorities simply did not enough in the messaging. Have you noticed that Xi Jinping did not show himself in front of the cameras with the shirt sleeves up to take the jab just as Joe Biden and many other leaders did when it was time to promote vaccination? That also does not help.



Yep, that's pretty much it. In my home country, our governments are promoting vaccinating against the flu and against COVID. The nurse at my vaccination clinic said that people can take both vaccines at the same time if they want; it's all for free.



The thing is that they had 2 years to get that mRNA vaccine now. I'm not an expert in vaccine development by pharmaceutical companies, but 2 years is quite a long time when you see smaller pharmaceutical companies coming with their own vaccines (some of them being mRNA vaccines) on the market as well right now. Gotta wonder if Chinese pharma have difficulties finding and compiling data for their mRNA vaccines because of the zero-COVID policy or because their sales pitch for sampling anywhere is just awful.

The fact that Xi has never shown himself to the cameras with his sleeves rolled up before taking the jab is already bad messaging. The more this goes, the more I believe several of those grumpy old men in the CCP are antivaxxers just like you said. Thank God they have not publicly promoted some stupid shit based on traditional or alternative medicine.
I can only speak from my own experience of working with Chinese companies outside of the pharma sector but yes, the COVID restrictions have had an absolutely enormous effect on their ability to innovate as they haven't been able to get consultants, suppliers and immigrant workers in to transfer the knowledge and technology from other parts of the world. Commissioning new test and production equipment from non-Chinese suppliers is taking months and even years longer than it should. Since the mRNA vaccines are likely pretty new to the Chinese pharma sector I imagine the COVID restrictions have caused them huge difficulties. And that's not even considering the effects of the internal travel restrictions and lockdowns within China either.
 
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M16Red

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I knew a woman from my previous work who lived in Shanghai just before pandemic kicked off in Europe in March 2020, she just returned to Krakow with her family three or four weeks before first cases were found in Poland. Because she was very close with her Chinese friends, and had usually been prone to being very condescending even prior to pandemic, basically the minute we got our first cases she kept her entire family locked up at home and called everyone who did not do the same idiots (as her knowledge about the virus, how it spreads, how dangerous it is, was vastly superior to that of any pleb that did not have 'friends in China'). She'd call me out on Facebook when I posted a pic from a walk with my dog, calling me a murderer and telling me I had blood on my hands, as she believed you should not even walk the dog (I had no backyard at the time, it is worth mentioning as I lived in a flat).

Between early March and late September they did not leave home once (N E V E R). They'd do all their groceries online, she and her husband worked from home only, kids were on homeschooling. They occasionally went to their backyard during the night when they were sure there'd be no neighbors outside. I don't know what happened after late September as she went on a mad spree then and just removed majority of her acquaintances from Facebook, so I would not be able to keep track, so no idea how long she kept on doing that after that but considering we barely had any cases until Sep 2020, and it kicked off properly around that time, I imagine she might have been locked down for quite a bit longer.
She sounds like a right knob.

Bet she's mad as feck now..
 

FireballXL5

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I had a feeling granny was the protestor, but it looks like the police did the right thing there. I thought the theme of the videos was oppression from the authorities, was curious what they did wrong this time
Bet you anything the guy who did it was a cop.
 

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What I dont understand, and I'd be grateful if anyone could shed light on this, is why China has gone for this zero covid policy. Everyone is vaccinated, like the rest of the world, there must be significant antibodies and immunity in the population now. This policy just harms their economy and creates masive social pressure.

It must be so weird for Chinese fans watching the world cup and seeing the rest of the world carry on as normal. So why the policy?
Everyone isn't vaccinated, coverage rates are at their lowest amongst the elderly, and those who are vaccinated are with domestic ones that aren't particular good. Add in the high population density, a cold winter in the northern cities and really low numbers of ICU beds it's a disaster waiting to happen.

Plus, they've backed themselves into a corner by claiming the party can defeat the virus, selling a change of policy is a major humiliation for the leadership.

The virus is always going to win, it's endemic all over the world. Zero Covid China will fall and it will be a shambles and trash the world economy with it.
 

TwoSheds

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So is this the beginning of the end for china
Probably not. Small chance it's the beginning of the end for Xi though. Which is probably a good thing for China in the long run. Deng Xiaoping was right that 2 terms is more than enough for any Chinese leader.
 

Lj82

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I can only speak from my own experience of working with Chinese companies outside of the pharma sector but yes, the COVID restrictions have had an absolutely enormous effect on their ability to innovate as they haven't been able to get consultants, suppliers and immigrant workers in to transfer the knowledge and technology from other parts of the world. Commissioning new test and production equipment from non-Chinese suppliers is taking months and even years longer than it should. Since the mRNA vaccines are likely pretty new to the Chinese pharma sector I imagine the COVID restrictions have caused them huge difficulties. And that's not even considering the effects of the internal travel restrictions and lockdowns within China either.
I wonder how would they conduct their trials even if they successfully develop mRNA vaccines. The rest of the world is already either vaccinated or have caught the virus already
 

SinNombre

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Probably not. Small chance it's the beginning of the end for Xi though. Which is probably a good thing for China in the long run. Deng Xiaoping was right that 2 terms is more than enough for any Chinese leader.
Xi just got supreme power - he is not going anywhere.

There were similar arguments made when the HK protests were raging, or when the world cared about the Uighurs for a brief second.