The pandemic has given Xi Jinping, China's top leader, a powerful case for deepening the Communist Party's reach into the lives of 1.4 billion citizens, filling out his vision of the country as a model of secure order, in contrast to the "chaos of the West."
A coronavirus testing site in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, May 9, 2021. China has instituted a wide range of high-tech controls on society as part of a mostly successful effort to stop the virus. The consequences may endure. (Lam Yik Fei/The New York Times)
Police had warned Xie Yang, a human rights lawyer, not to go to Shanghai to visit the mother of a dissident. He went to the airport anyway.
His phone’s health code app — a digital pass indicating possible exposure to the coronavirus — was green, which meant he could travel. His home city, Changsha, had no COVID-19 cases, and he had not left in weeks.
Then his app turned red, flagging him as high risk. Airport security tried to put him in quarantine, but he resisted. Xie accused authorities of meddling with his health code to bar him from traveling.
“The Chinese Communist Party has found the best model for controlling people,” he said in December. This month, police detained Xie, a government critic, accusing him of inciting subversion and provoking trouble.
The pandemic has given Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, a powerful case for deepening the Communist Party’s reach into the lives of 1.4 billion citizens, filling out his vision of the country as a model of secure order, in contrast to the “chaos of the West.” In the two years since officials isolated the city of Wuhan in the first lockdown of the pandemic, the Chinese government has honed its powers to track and corral people, backed by upgraded technology, armies of neighborhood workers and broad public support.
©2019 New York Times News Service