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Coronavirus China
OpinionComment
S. Alex Yang
Angela Huyue Zhang
S. Alex YangandAngela Huyue Zhang

Opinion | China’s economic opening up provides a blueprint for its exit from zero-Covid

  • China’s exit from zero-Covid poses huge logistical challenges and health risks, but its centralised system of governance offers some advantages
  • During its years of economic reform, centralised planning allowed China to open up city by city, gradually building confidence and containing risks

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Illustration: Craig Stephens
S. Alex YangandAngela Huyue Zhang
Following a deadly fire in a residential building in China’s Xinjiang region – which many blame on Covid-19 lockdowns – Chinese protesters have taken to the streets to demand an end to stringent pandemic restrictions.
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Even before the protests erupted, there were signs that President Xi Jinping’s administration was preparing to roll back the costly zero-Covid policy, though the exact timeline remains uncertain. But this process will be more complicated than many seem to realise.

China’s exit from zero-Covid clearly carries public-health risks that must be managed, especially given low vaccination rates among the elderly. Less noticed, however, are the operational challenges this process raises.

As China has learned from Hong Kong’s painful experience, a wave of infections in a densely populated area can create a sudden surge in demand for medical resources, paralysing the public-health system. If the government fails to find a way to meet that demand quickly, the death toll – especially among the elderly – could soar.

The need to prevent such a demand shock explains why countries have largely taken a gradual approach to lifting pandemic-control measures. But for a country with strong centralised control, China has the advantage of staging its gradual reopening not only in a temporal sense, but geographically as well.

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China’s economic reform and opening up over the past four decades offers useful lessons. Rather than opening the entire economy to the outside world in one fell swoop, China began by designating four mainland cities as special economic zones. Soon after, it opened up 14 other coastal cities. It then gradually replicated the now-proven model in the rest of the country.

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