China’s ‘zero Covid’ policy was a mass imprisonment campaign | Murong Xuecun

The Chinese government used the pandemic to accumulate ever more power. The result was a totalitarian, anti-scientific humanitarian catastrophe

In one week last December, five members of Guan Yao's family in Beijing died, including his father, his father-in-law and his grandmother. In an interview with a journalist, Guan, who lives in California, appeared powerless and dejected. Yet - for reasons that anyone from China understands - he chose his words carefully. Avoiding directly mentioning the Chinese government, he referred only to an ambiguous them". It is difficult to understand," Guan said, why they abruptly lifted all restrictions."

If you choose to believe official Chinese government documents, the deaths of Guan's five relatives had nothing to do with Covid. They may have been infected with Covid, but government rules - rules that can't be made public and can't be questioned - required that doctors who issue death certificates come up with other causes of death. Guan's uncle died of Parkinson's, his grandmother of kidney failure.