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China’s propaganda machine sputters in zero Covid reversal | World News

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China’s State media struggled and censors worked overtime as Beijing fumbled for a coherent narrative following an abrupt reversal of its signature zero-Covid policy.

over the years, state propaganda machine Praise for zero coronavirus is a testament to the superiority of the Communist Party’s authoritarian rule and the wisdom of the mighty President Xi Jinping.

Read also | In China, ‘hospital morgues are overcrowded… worsening Covid has not yet arrived’: expert

But now, even with the surge in cases, its usual spokespeople are hailing the decision to lift strict travel restrictions, quarantines and rapid lockdowns as a victory.

“The state media has yet to come up with a grand story to fully legitimize this sudden and sweeping change,” said Fang Kecheng, an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s School of Journalism and Communication.

“They were taken aback.”

He told AFP that “message inconsistencies” suggested that propaganda agencies may lack sufficient instructions from the party on how to frame the situation.

a fierce battle

Some media have hinted that not all is well, with state news agency Xinhua and state broadcaster CCTV reporting this week urging people to use the Covid drug “rationally” and highlighting the government’s efforts to guarantee supplies.

But instead of reporting on the dark side of the exit wave, government-run publications have sought to quell fears of the pathogen’s efficacy and portray the policy shift as a logical, controlled and triumphant exit.

“Looking back on the past three years, we have fought an exciting battle against the pandemic and experienced arduous historical tests,” the party-run People’s Daily said in an editorial last week.

Zero coronavirus “demonstrates the superiority of China’s socialist system,” it said, adding that “optimizing” policies now would help adapt to new virus variants while “putting the lives and health of the people first.” .

Read also | China estimates 37 million coronavirus infections in a single day, record high

People are also reluctant to address the rising number of Covid cases.

On Friday, a party-run newspaper cited official estimates that the eastern city of Qingdao was seeing 500,000 new cases a day. An AFP comment on the article showed that by Saturday the story had been revised to remove the figure.

While Mr. Xi’s recent flurry of diplomacy has dominated the headlines, he has yet to comment publicly on the collapse of a policy that was until recently a hallmark.

severe cold

A similar sense of uncertainty pervades Chinese social media, where censors routinely purge politically sensitive content.

Several posts on the popular Weibo platform that claimed to describe deaths linked to the coronavirus appeared to be censored on Friday afternoon, according to comments by an AFP reporter.

They included several blank photos, ostensibly taken at a crematorium, and posts from an account that claimed to belong to the mother of a two-year-old girl who died after contracting the virus.

Posts about drug shortages and price gouging were also removed, according to censorship watchdog GreatFire.org.

Social media users have posted angry or sarcastic comments in response to the taboo surrounding Covid deaths.

Many crowds gathered at a local state-linked news outlet after it reported that Wu Guanying, the mascot designer for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, had died of a “bad cold” at the age of 67.

One commenter likened the phrasing to China’s authoritarian neighbor North Korea, while another asked: “Is it illegal to say ‘Covid’ now?”

However, other important posts remained online as of Friday afternoon – including many critical of the government’s lack of an exit strategy.

“Do they really believe they can kill the virus through lockdown?” reads one.

“For three years, they have never made a contingency plan that is beyond their control?”

Assistant professor Fang said Chinese officials “will eventually find a way to see everything as a victory, maybe after the infection situation stabilizes”.

“The unique method of counting Covid deaths already provides the basis for this,” he added, citing the government’s new definition of death from the virus, which excludes many.

China officially recorded no new virus deaths on Saturday, according to the National Health Commission.

Weibo hashtags related to how the country defines Covid deaths – counting only those who die of respiratory failure after testing positive – have been censored.

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