Here's a recent commentary from a WeChat group (translated via deepl):
> The current situation is that Western water forces, through insidious and poisonous means such as the Internet, have created a very dangerous atmosphere of public opinion and incited the people to rebellion. If we are deceived and held hostage by these rumors, what China will end up with will only be a disaster. We have to believe that the country, more than anyone else, wants an early end to the epidemic, and more than anyone else, wants an early end to this costly and socially expensive epidemic prevention activity, so that society can return to normal and the economy can recover as soon as possible. We believe that the Party and the government will be able to lead the people of China to work together to overcome the epidemic! China will win! [fist][fist][fist]
That must be propaganda because it should be obvious to a lay person that it started in late 2019. China government has been trying for 3 years to “have an early end”
It is pretty clear that the quoted is propaganda from the first sentence. When I read "... Western water forces, through insidious and poisonous means such as the Internet ..." as the opening, what comes after is always propaganda.
This does not mean that it cannot contain true statements, but that it could only be useful by providing clues about the goal that the authors want to achieve; not from taking the words as information. My 2c.
Whenever I read translations like that, I often feel that the propaganda arm is trapped in the 1940s. A totalitarian police state doesn't actually need that great of a propaganda arm. It just has to scrape by with being loosely believable.
Wait until you read to "We believe that the Party and the government will be able to lead the people of China to work together to overcome the epidemic! China will win! [fist][fist][fist]".
That could just be due to a failing strategy. China always tried to completely contain and destroy the virus, and had good success with that early on. Many other countries instead went with "let it spread at a rate our health care system can handle".
China's approach had a better chance at bringing it to a fast end early on, but with greater risk if it doesn't end quickly. Now that it is a multi-year affair, they have worse natural immunity than everyone else, on top of their less-successful vaccine. And switching tactics would be an admission of failure, while keeping the current tactic is slowly destroying their economy.
China's approach never had any chance of bringing the pandemic to a fast end. No contagious respiratory virus has ever been stopped through such means. Once the first infected carriers left Wuhan in December 2019 any possibly of containing the virus was completely lost.
I thought COVID required lockdowns because symptoms only appear after days of being contagious. SARS definitely presented a fever very closely following infection, and thermal scans in airports were effective. Not so much for COVID.
No, it didn't work. SARS-CoV basically burned itself out. MERS is still around (carried by camels) and infects humans occasionally. In both of those, the public health measures had very little effect.
That's my theory - "zero covid" had good success, but has resulted in very little herd immunity. And by all reports their homegrown vaccine program hasn't had fantastic results.
I think if & when they end "zero covid" they're in for a world of shock. Without a good plan, a good vaccine, and a good vaccination program - it's going to be opening the floodgates.
I don't think they're sticking with "zero covid" out of choice, but because they're not ready for what comes next. It's going to reveal that total lockdowns weren't a stop-gap measure, they were the primary measure - and there's no good plan to follow.
Fascinating that to understand "astroturf" you'd have to understand that it's a brand of fake grass, and it's a term someone invented to mean "fake grassroots movement" and you'd have to understand what the phrase "grassroots movement" is.
An average Chinese person who encounters "astroturfer" for the first time would probably wonder what it means, just like we wondered what "water scouts" mean...
Online water scouts are hired online writers who publish specific information about specific content in the Internet. They are usually active in e-commerce websites, forums, microblogs and other social networking platforms. They influence normal users by disguising themselves as ordinary Internet users or consumers and by posting, replying and spreading blog posts.
> The current situation is that Western water forces, through insidious and poisonous means such as the Internet, have created a very dangerous atmosphere of public opinion and incited the people to rebellion. If we are deceived and held hostage by these rumors, what China will end up with will only be a disaster. We have to believe that the country, more than anyone else, wants an early end to the epidemic, and more than anyone else, wants an early end to this costly and socially expensive epidemic prevention activity, so that society can return to normal and the economy can recover as soon as possible. We believe that the Party and the government will be able to lead the people of China to work together to overcome the epidemic! China will win! [fist][fist][fist]
> 当前形势是西方水军通过网络等阴险毒辣的方式，已经营造了一个非常危险的舆论氛围，煽动民众叛乱，如果我们被这些流言所蒙骗和裹挟，最后中国迎来的只会是灾难。我们要相信，国家比任何人都希望疫情早日结束，也比任何人都希望早日结束这种耗资巨大、社会成本巨大的防疫活动，让社会恢复正常，经济早日复苏。相信党和政府，定能领导全国人民，同心协力，战胜疫情！中国必胜！[拳头][拳头][拳头]