Why people are screaming from their apartments in Shanghai

Singapore: Residents screaming from their windows, desperate fathers attempting to break through police lines, entire apartment blocks running out of food.

Shanghai spent two years avoiding a coronavirus lockdown, but when it finally came the authorities in charge of this city of almost 30 million people were not prepared. The city has responded through fits of protest, a sea of residents in towers yelling in front of flashing apartment lights and people banding together to grab whatever food they can get their hands on.

The shortages are affecting the top and bottom tiers of Shanghai society. Chinese tycoon Kathy Xu has tried to join a collective buying bread and milk, the marines based in the US consulate have had to beg for food to be delivered and some migrant workers have reported eating one steamed bun every two days.

“In Shanghai, we’re in the middle of the hurricane, this is also a lesson for all the other cities in China,” said Rodrigo Zeidan, a professor of business at NYU Shanghai and Fundacao Dom Cabral who lives in the Chinese metropolis.

“It was chaos. There’s a lot of frustration and anger, there are all sorts of feelings. It’s a city of 30 million people. So, there are 30 million individuals with their own feelings.”

The issue that has driven Shanghainese to the streets and to confrontations with medical workers and police is supply. This cosmopolitan hub suddenly shut down its economy, but officials now admit they had not thought through how they would get food delivered to compounds once delivery drivers or grocery workers were isolated or locked down themselves.

Mao Fang, the vice president of one of China’s largest supermarkets, Meituan, said vegetables had arrived at the company’s warehouses, but there was no one to sort them. They brought in another 1000 workers on Thursday from other cities to clear through the backlog, but companies are still struggling to keep up.

“[There was] insufficient labour to compensate for the total shift of consumption from a variety of places to one place – your home,” said David Fishman, an energy market analyst who lives in Shanghai.

In their compounds, residents have had to co-ordinate with hundreds of neighbours to place orders big enough to bring in entire truckloads of shopping.

Fishman ordered $3700 worth of groceries with his neighbours to make sure they could get vegetables, eggs, chicken and other supplies delivered.

“The key was making sure no one was left out, including the elderly who aren’t savvy on their phones, and the foreigners who couldn’t read or keep up with the volume of Chinese messages in the group,” he said.

Zeidan said as an economist it was interesting to see supply chains break down in real life, but the experience had also shown how Chinese communities could band together when the government failed.

“Forty years ago, 80 per cent of the Chinese population lived in extreme poverty – it was mostly a rural country,” said Zeidan.

“So especially older people, they were used to this kind of way of living in rural areas in which we know our neighbours, and we must rely on them.

A worker in protective gear holds a sign which reads “Do not crowd” during a mass testing day for residents in a lockdown area in the Jingan district of western Shanghai.Credit: AP

“The only way that you don’t go hungry is if you count on our neighbours. It’s basic social insurance. It’s something that has carried on and taught lessons that people are applying today.”

In some areas, food supply shortages that triggered widespread anger over the weekend are easing, but migrants, the elderly and itinerant workers remain vulnerable as China pushes ahead with its COVID-zero strategy. Footage of residents being hauled away, a beggar being stomped on and animals being taken by workers in hazmat suits has attracted outrage across China’s social media platforms.

In a letter to all Chinese Communist Party members in Shanghai last week, the party leadership urged them to crack down on any resistance they faced.

“Our party comrades should go deep into the grassroots and the masses … show their swords and struggle against all kinds of behaviours that interfere with and undermine the overall situation of the epidemic, take the initiative to speak out against all kinds of noises and especially rumours, clarify right and wrong, so as to unite as one and overcome difficulties together.”

The challenge for the Chinese government is pulling Shanghai out of a spiral of lockdowns while getting jabs to the 52 million elderly residents who remain unvaccinated around the country.

Mercator Institute for China Studies analyst Vincent Brussee said Shanghai had hoped to avoid a total lockdown but was now paying a much higher price.

“In response, China’s central government has doubled down on its dynamic clearing strategy, but faces a mammoth task. While Europe gradually shifts to normality, for many in China there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.”

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