BEIJING (AP) – On a quiet Sunday night, residents of a Shanghai luxury resort took to the streets to denounce the blockade restrictions imposed by their community. The next morning they were free to leave.
The triumphant story has quickly spread to chat groups across the Chinese city this week, prompting a question in the minds of those who remained locked in: Shouldn’t we do the same?
By the end of the week, other groups of residents had faced management of their complexes, and some had achieved at least a partial release.
While it is not clear how widespread they are, the incidents reflect the frustration that has accumulated after more than seven weeks of confinement, although the number of new daily cases has dropped to a few hundred in one city. of 25 million inhabitants.
They are also a reminder of the power of China’s neighborhood committees on which the ruling Communist Party relies to spread propaganda messages, enforce its decisions, and even resolve personal disputes. These committees and their respective residential committees have become the target of complaints, especially after some in Shanghai and other cities refused to allow residents to leave even after official restrictions were relaxed.
More than 21 million people in Shanghai are now in “precautionary zones”, the least restrictive category. In theory, they are free to go out. In practice, the decision depends on their residential committees, resulting in a kaleidoscope of arbitrary rules.
Some may leave, but only for a few hours with a season ticket issued specifically for a particular day or day of the week. Some places only allow one person per household. Others forbid people to leave.
“We’ve already been given at least three different dates when we’re going to reopen, and none of them were real,” said Weronika Truszczynska, a Polish undergraduate student who posted vlogs about her experience.
“The residential committee told us you can wait a week, we will probably reopen on June 1,” he said. “No one believed him.”
More than a dozen residents of his resort, many under umbrellas on a rainy day, clashed with his executives on Tuesday, two days after Sunday night’s escape to the Huixianju luxury resort.
Residents, who were mostly Chinese, demanded that they be allowed to leave without time limits or restrictions on how many per household. After failing to meet the demands, some protested again for a second day. This time, four police officers were on the lookout.
On Thursday afternoon, community representatives knocked on each resident’s door with a new policy: write their name and apartment number on a list, do a temperature check, scan a barcode, and go be free to leave.
“We were able to leave only because we were brave enough to protest,” Truszczynska said of his fellow residents.
The blockade of Shanghai has also provoked resistance from people in quarantine and forced laborers to sleep in their workplaces. Videos on social media showed what was said to be employees of a factory operated by Quanta Computer Inc. from Taiwan trying to leave the facility in early May.
The party’s strict anti-virus campaign has been aided by an urban environment in which hundreds of millions of people in China live in enclosed apartment complexes or walled neighborhoods that can be easily blocked.
The first line of compliance is the neighborhood committees that are responsible for monitoring all residents of every urban home across the country and enforcing public health and sanitation standards.
Many tend to err on the side of over-execution, aware of the example of public officials who are fired or criticized for failing to meet their pandemic prevention obligations.
The importance of neighborhood committees declined in the 1990s as the Communist Party relaxed restrictions on the movement of citizens, but they have been experiencing a resurgence in a continuing tightening of social controls under President Xi Jinping.
The incident in Huixianju prompted other people to comment. In a series of videos circulating this week, some two dozen people march on the West Nanjing Highway Police Station, chanting “Obey the law, bring me back to life.”
Residents of a complex in Jing’an District saw the doors of neighboring complexes open for the past month, but theirs remained closed. On Wednesday, about two dozen gathered at the door, shouting to talk to a representative.
“I want to understand what the neighborhood leaders are planning?” asks a woman in a video of the incident. Another woman interjects, “Are you moving forward?” A third resident points out that they should already be free, as the site has long been free of cases. “Didn’t they tell the TV that things were opening up? We saw it on TV, “says an elderly man.
The next day, the community issued one-day passes: residents were able to leave for two hours on Friday, not knowing what would happen next.
Shanghai authorities have declared June a goal for life to return to normal. But some people are not waiting, pushing the boundaries slowly.
On Thursday night, more than a dozen young people gathered at a street concert in the same neighborhood where Sunday’s protest took place. The video for the latest song, “Tomorrow will be better,” was widely shared on social media.
A police car parked nearby with its red and blue flashing lights and headlights on. As the final song drew to a close, an officer wearing a facial screen walked over to the group and said, “Okay, you’ve had enough fun. It’s time to go back.” The crowd dispersed.
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Associated Press researcher Si Chen in Shanghai and writer Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed to this report.