Shanghai, China’s economic and commercial hub with a population of over 24 million, has been in a hard lockdown for the past two months, which has only just been lifted by the municipal government. Production activities were halted, businesses shut down, and residents were barred from leaving their homes.
Residents have decried the absolute and heavily enforced restrictions, some unnecessary, imposed by their communities, while government staffers from Shanghai’s many local community committees deferred residents’ complaints by saying they were just following “orders from above”—referring to the municipal and central government authorities.
Community committees are the grassroots level of the Chinese regime’s government structure, and are under the direct supervision of subdistrict offices. They take charge of almost all civil affairs in the community, including enforcement of the regime’s policies such as family planning, maintenance of social security, and distribution of aid, among others….