A widely circulated WeChat article speculated that the shortage of fever medicines reflected the government’s lack of preparation to relax controls. And if the government had shown the same political will it did in implementing “zero Covid,” the article argued, it could have ensured there was an adequate supply of such medication.
“It doesn’t care about the common people, let them fend for themselves and even enjoy their chaos,” the article said, urging officials to appear where the public needed them most to restore confidence. to win.
The low trust in the government forces people to help themselves and each other. In local WeChat groups, people made arrangements to share their fever medicines and rapid test kits with their neighbors.
Tencent, the social media giant, also built a WeChat program where people with extra medications could request from strangers. The requests for help are modest: six tablets of paracetamol; four tablets of ibuprofen; two rapid test kits; one fever thermometer.
They ask strangers for help because they are not getting it from their government.
“Don’t expect anything from Leviathan – there’s no point in appealing either,” Chen Min, a former journalist better known by his pseudonym Xiao Shu, wrote on his WeChat timeline, referring to the central government. “Ultimately, we have to help ourselves.”
Only by building a vast network of social connections, he continued, “in the darkest moment can we weave a real social safety net, build a real Noah’s Ark and save countless lives.”
This is exactly the kind of governance crisis Mr Xi once warned the party about.
“It is not for us to judge our party’s administrative capacity or performance; they must and can only be judged by the people,” Mr. Xi said in a speech in 2013. “If we are pretentious and separate ourselves from the people or put ourselves above them, we will surely be let down by them. This is the case for every party, and it is an iron law that allows no exception.”
