crazyjsj

I would not think so. if checking Shanghai's GDP, nobody would risk it if they want to manage China. "ecomomic growth" is really the super important basis for CCP to manage China. In late 1980, China chose to do both economic reform and political reform. Ecomomic reform is successful so far, that's why it is hiding other issues in the system. People can see their living standards are improving. The political reform (at least the direciton was to approach Signapore-like system) has a strong setback starting from the "Tiananmen Sqare" event. Since then, the political reform is very slow, now, even shifting to a more and more conservative direction (which is sad). But with the living standards of people improve, people would start to demand more to have a say in politics. With such a conflict there, and if economic growth of the nation has some serious problems, then CCP will have problems (People's tolerance will be gone). That's why we see a lot of companies are allowed to operate again in Shanghai.

I might think that the mess in Shanghai is a result of political game. This year is a critical year of so called "election“ for CPP cabinet. Apparently, "zero covid" policy is supported by those Xi supporters, while "coexistence with Covid" policy is supported by liberals in CPP. Due to higher education and higher income, and much openess to foreign cultures, Shanghai is historically a place for liberals. Shanghai's contribution of tax to the central government is the highest, and their local governors acutally have a strong saying in the cabinet. Right now the central government is shifting to more and more conservative. By nature, there is a strong conflict between Shanghai local goverment and central government. In the initial stage, the Shanghai local government would like to follow the suit of Hongkong and Signapore to co-exist with Omicron, that's why they do not use the drastic measure to contain it in the very beginning. (Be noted that Shenzhen at the same time chose to a fast lockdown, and realize a zero Covid in a very short time) However, the central government seems not happy about that, and then tried to push the policy to "zero covid" policy again. Then it is a mess. To be honest, if simply analyzing China and CCP as a similar USSR communism party and only information from Western media, this already created a strong bias. China and its policy are not perfect, probably it is not as good as propaganda by Chinese main stream media, also it is not as drastically evil as propoganda by Western main stream media. And people over there are just as normal as people in other countries, they know what is good with the system, and they also know what is bad with the system. When the benefits of people have been damaged and threatened by the policies of the government, people over there will fight. There are so many Chinese and Western people traveling btw China and Western countries, somebody choose to stay and sombody choose to leave, (just check the international flights). Are they stupid? No, I do not think so.