Shanghai’s Communist Party chief Li Qiang on June 25 announced that the financial hub had finally won its three-month battle fighting COVID-19. However, this so-called “victory” was not without its collateral damage. It came at a huge cost to the Shanghai economy while creating immense suffering for the city’s 25 million people.
Li declared the victory at a municipal meeting of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) representatives, and attributed the “victory” to the CCP-led political system and the authorities’ firm adherence to “dynamic Zero-COVID” policy.
After the news report was posted on a People’s Daily social media account, the history log of the comment section showed that readers left 761 comments. However, in a short while, there were only five comments remaining, and a message appeared at the bottom of the webpage which said, “inappropriate comments have been filtered, and some comments will not be displayed for the time being.”…