[2022-10-10] 外交事务 - 习近平能否重新开放中国？(台湾，生日快乐！)
![]() Ending the Havoc of Zero COVID—Without Causing a Crisis
By Yanzhong Huang
October 7, 2022
结束动态清零的破坏——还不引发危机
作者：黄延中
2022 年 10 月 7 日
YANZHONG HUANG is Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Professor at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, and Director of the school’s Center for Global Health Studies.
黄延中是美国对外关系委员会全球健康高级研究员、塞顿霍尔大学外交与国际关系学院教授、该校全球健康研究中心主任。
With COVID-19 increasingly tamed, governments across Asia have been winding down some of the world’s strictest control measures. In September, Taiwan announced that it was reopening its borders and phasing out its quarantine policies; South Korea lifted its outdoor mask mandate and scrapped mandatory COVID-19 testing for inbound travelers. On October 11, Japan will end a pre-departure test requirement for travelers who have received at least one vaccine booster and fully reopen its borders for the first time since 2020. Even Hong Kong, which for more than two years had emulated mainland China in maintaining stringent border controls, has decided to end all hotel quarantine requirements for international arrivals. For all these countries and territories, the pivot to a lighter, more flexible approach has been driven by the growing recognition that COVID-19 is now a manageable endemic disease and that harsh population-level containment has come at a very high price.
随着武汉肺炎越来越被驯服，亚洲各国政府一直在逐步取消一些世界上最严格的控制措施。 9月，台湾宣布重新开放边境并逐步取消检疫政策； 韩国取消了对户外口罩的要求，并取消了对入境旅客的强制性武汉肺炎测试。 10 月 11 日，日本将结束对至少接种过一次疫苗增强剂的旅客的出发前检测要求，并自 2020 年以来首次全面重新开放边境。即使是两年多来效仿中国大陆的香港也是如此。 保持严格的边境控制，已决定终止对国际入境者的所有酒店检疫要求。 对于所有这些国家和地区，人们越来越认识到武汉肺炎现在是一种可控制的地方病，而且严酷的人口水平控制付出了非常高的代价，从而推动了转向更轻松、更灵活的方法。
Amid this rapid normalization, however, China has instead doubled down on its all-encompassing “zero COVID” strategy. In contrast to almost every other country in the world, China continues to pursue stringent border controls, aggressive isolation of close contacts, sudden closures of airports and public spaces, and snap lockdowns of neighborhoods and even entire municipalities. Having staked enormous political capital on zero COVID, China’s leadership is loath to change course—particularly on the eve of the all-important 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party this month, where President Xi Jinping is set to have his 10-year rule extended. In city after city, officials are pursuing excessively harsh measures in an effort to avoid any outbreaks that might embarrass the government.
然而，在这种快速正常化的过程中，中国反而加倍实施其包罗万象的“动态清零”战略。 与世界上几乎所有其他国家相比，中国继续实行严格的边境管制，积极隔离密切接触者，突然关闭机场和公共场所，并迅速封锁社区甚至整个城市。 在将巨额政治资本押在动态清零上后，中国领导层不愿改变方向——尤其是在本月至关重要的中国共产党第 20 次全国代表大会前夕，习近平主席将在大会上执政 10 年 扩展。 在一个又一个城市，官员们正在采取过于严厉的措施，以避免任何可能让政府难堪的疫情爆发。
Beijing’s intransigence has come at an escalating cost. Prolonged lockdowns of millions of people in major cities such as Shanghai have not only devastated China’s economy—which is now expected to significantly fall short of growth targets—but also provoked rising social discontent. The Chinese government’s failures to implement more effective health policies, meanwhile, such as authorizing the use of mRNA vaccines and prioritizing the elderly in its vaccination campaign, have meant that the population remains needlessly vulnerable to future outbreaks. So the government faces a growing dilemma. On the one hand, its zero-COVID strategy is sufficiently unpopular that few government officials are prepared to publicly endorse its long-term existence, and international pressure to abandon the policy is mounting. On the other hand, political considerations and the lack of a clear alternative have prevented Beijing from moving away from it.
北京的不妥协付出了不断升级的代价。 上海等主要城市对数百万人的长期封锁不仅破坏了中国经济——现在预计中国经济将大大低于增长目标——而且还引发了社会不满情绪。 与此同时，中国政府未能实施更有效的卫生政策，例如授权使用 mRNA 疫苗和在疫苗接种活动中优先考虑老年人，这意味着人口在未来疫情爆发中仍然毫无必要地脆弱。 因此，政府面临越来越大的困境。 一方面，其动态清零战略非常不受欢迎，以至于很少有政府官员准备公开支持其长期存在，而放弃该政策的国际压力也越来越大。 另一方面，政治考虑和缺乏明确的替代方案使北京无法摆脱它。
Beijing’s stubbornness is puzzling. Rather than reaffirming an increasingly untenable policy, the Party Congress presents China with a crucial opportunity to rein in its excesses. Once the congress has taken place and political optics are no longer directly in play, Beijing could begin to change its narrative about COVID-19 and choose science over politics. By making effective vaccines and treatments more widely available, it could bring its anti-COVID policies in line with those of its Asian neighbors and help the population resume a normal social and economic life. At the same time, local officials, if under less pressure to impress higher-ups, would no longer have to rely on needlessly aggressive lockdowns and other interventions that come at the expense of economic growth and basic social freedoms. If China’s leaders fail to change their approach, however, it may not only leave the country exposed to an unending cycle of outbreaks and lockdowns; it could also threaten its long-term social, economic, and even political stability.
北京的固执令人费解。中共代表大会并没有重申一项越来越站不住脚的政策，而是为中国提供了一个遏制其过度行为的关键机会。一旦大会召开并且政治光学不再直接发挥作用，北京可能会开始改变其关于武汉肺炎的叙述，并选择科学而非政治。通过更广泛地提供有效的疫苗和治疗方法，它可以使其抗武汉肺炎政策与亚洲邻国的政策保持一致，并帮助人们恢复正常的社会和经济生活。与此同时，如果地方官员在打动高层的压力较小时，将不再需要依赖不必要的激进封锁和其他以牺牲经济增长和基本社会自由为代价的干预措施。然而，如果中国领导人未能改变他们的做法，它不仅可能使该国面临无休止的疫情和封锁循环；它还可能威胁到其长期的社会、经济甚至政治稳定。
OVERPROTECTED AND UNPROTECTED
过度保护和未保护
Despite growing evidence that zero COVID is doing far more harm than good, the Chinese government has important motives for clinging to it. First and foremost is the potential health crisis that relaxing the approach could entail. After two and a half years of zero-tolerance policies, Beijing has created a situation in which a very high percentage of its population has never been exposed to the virus. According to official figures, China thus far has accumulated 996,000 infections. Even taking into account the potential problem of underreporting—which is not a major concern in view of China’s centralized PCR testing system—this figure shows that only a very small fraction of its population has been infected and therefore carries some natural immunity. In fact, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself has acknowledged what it calls, “China’s nearly unique situation of having only vaccine-induced immunity.”
尽管越来越多的证据表明动态清零弊大于利，但中国政府坚持动态清零的动机很重要。 首先也是最重要的是放松管控可能带来的潜在健康危机。 经过两年半的动态清零政策，北京创造了一种情况，即非常高比例的人口从未接触过病毒。 根据官方数据，中国迄今已累计感染99.6万例。 即使考虑到潜在的漏报问题——鉴于中国的集中式 PCR 检测系统，这不是一个主要问题——这个数字表明，只有极少数人口受到感染，因此具有一定的天然免疫力。 事实上，中国疾病预防控制中心 (CDC) 本身也承认了它所说的“中国几乎独一无二的情况，即只有疫苗诱导的免疫力”。
But the vaccine picture is equally concerning. Although as of March 2022, nearly 90 percent of the Chinese population had received two doses of China’s non-mRNA vaccines, studies now estimate that about six months after the administration of the second dose, the antibodies triggered by these vaccines drop to a level that is considered low or even undetectable. Because of this immunity gap, Chinese officials have reason to fear that a policy relaxation could be followed by a surge of COVID-19 cases that would quickly overwhelm the country’s health-care system. At the extreme, this could lead to large numbers of deaths and consequent societal instability.
但疫苗情况同样令人担忧。 尽管截至 2022 年 3 月，近 90% 的中国人口已经接种了两剂中国的非 mRNA 疫苗，但研究现在估计，在接种第二剂后大约六个月，这些疫苗引发的抗体下降到 被认为很低甚至无法检测到。 由于存在这种免疫力差距，中国官员有理由担心政策放松后可能会出现大量武汉肺炎病例，这将迅速使该国的医疗保健系统不堪重负。 在极端情况下，这可能导致大量死亡和随之而来的社会不稳定。
Although such a worst-case scenario may be unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, especially because the health-care system remains fragile in rural areas, and China has a relatively large percentage of elderly people who are not fully vaccinated. (Perhaps because of the false sense of security that zero-COVID policies have created, the elderly have not been prioritized for vaccines and boosters. Notably, among Chinese who are 60 or older, the two-dose vaccination rate is now 85.6 percent, and the booster rate is just 67.8 percent—both admittedly lower than figures for the same cohort in the United States.)
虽然这种最坏的情况可能不太可能发生，但不能排除这种情况，特别是因为农村地区的医疗保健系统仍然脆弱，而且中国有较大比例的老年人没有完全接种疫苗。 （也许是因为动态清零造成的虚假安全感，老年人没有被优先接种疫苗和加强剂。值得注意的是，在 60 岁或以上的中国人中，两剂疫苗接种率现在是 85.6%，并且 助推器率仅为 67.8%——两者都低于美国同一队列的数据。）
To understand just how devastating a late-pandemic surge could be for an immunologically naïve population, consider the fate of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the Spanish flu pandemic. In his 2009 book Contagion and Chaos, the late political scientist Andrew Price-Smith noted that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was largely spared from the initial waves of the “Great Influenza” in the spring and summer of 1918. But it was devastated by the third wave, which appeared in the fall of 1918 and, he argued, helped precipitate the defeat of Germany and Austria in World War I and ultimately the collapse of the empire. According to Price-Smith, this devastating third wave, coming after a relative dearth of cases in the first two waves, delivered a profound shock to the social and economic system, becoming the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Although there are many differences between Austria-Hungary and China today, it is easy to understand the extent to which officials in Beijing may fear the consequences of a sudden unbridled spread of the disease after keeping it at bay for so long.
要了解疫情后期的激增对免疫幼稚人群的破坏性有多大，请考虑西班牙流感疫情结束时奥匈帝国的命运。已故政治学家安德鲁·普赖斯-史密斯在 2009 年出版的《传染病与混沌》一书中指出，奥匈帝国在很大程度上没有受到 1918 年春季和夏季“大流感”的最初波及。第三波浪潮出现在 1918 年秋天，他认为，它促成了德国和奥地利在第一次世界大战中的失败，并最终导致了帝国的崩溃。 Price-Smith 表示，在前两波病例相对较少之后，这波毁灭性的第三波浪潮给社会和经济体系带来了深刻的冲击，成为众所周知的“压死骆驼的稻草”。尽管今天奥匈帝国和中国之间存在许多差异，但很容易理解北京官员在长期阻止这种疾病之后，可能会在多大程度上担心这种疾病突然肆无忌惮地传播的后果。
Second, despite rising discontent, Beijing understands that a significant portion of the public—especially in smaller towns and rural areas—still strongly supports the zero-COVID policies. People do so in part as a result of relentless state propaganda and their lack of access to independent information. For example, the Chinese media frequently contrast the number of infections and deaths in China with that in the West and contend that China is achieving the best results in balancing economic growth and COVID prevention and control.
其次，尽管不满情绪不断上升，但北京明白，很大一部分公众——尤其是在小城镇和农村地区——仍然强烈支持动态清零政策。 人们这样做的部分原因是国家无情的宣传以及他们无法获得独立信息。 例如，中国媒体经常将中国与西方的感染和死亡人数进行对比，认为中国在平衡经济增长和武汉肺炎疫情防控方面取得了最好的成绩。
But social adaptation has also played a role: many people have come to rely on zero COVID to protect them from the ravages they are told have taken place elsewhere in the world. Indeed, hundreds of millions of elderly Chinese (and their family members) appear to believe that Beijing’s harsh policies have effectively shielded them from the virus—even though many of them are still not fully vaccinated or have failed to obtain booster shots. As a result, if Beijing begins to scale back the policies without being able to guarantee the safety of the elderly, it could risk undermining the support it has so carefully built up over the past two and a half years.
但社会适应也发挥了作用：许多人开始依赖动态清零来保护他们免受世界其他地方发生的蹂躏。 事实上，数以亿计的中国老年人（及其家人）似乎相信北京的严厉政策有效地保护了他们免受病毒侵害——尽管他们中的许多人仍未完全接种疫苗或未能获得加强注射。 因此，如果北京在无法保证老年人安全的情况下开始缩减政策，它可能会破坏其在过去两年半中精心建立的支持。
A third reason that Beijing is reluctant to abandon zero COVID is that important interests close to the regime are benefitting from it. Hundreds of Chinese companies, for example, have reaped enormous profits from providing rapid PCR testing services, which China has implemented on a massive scale. According to one report, in the first half of 2022, China’s top ten testing companies raked in a combined 48.52 billion yuan ($6.8 billion) in revenue, with total net profits of 16.3 billion yuan ($2.3 billion). And China’s political leaders themselves, having put so much political and economic capital into the strategy, have an incentive to stick with it. As Xi told officials in June, “Persistence is victory.”
北京不愿放弃动态清零的第三个原因是，与政权关系密切的重要利益正在从中受益。 例如，数百家中国公司从提供快速PCR检测服务中获得了巨额利润，中国已经大规模实施了这种服务。 一份报告显示，2022年上半年，中国十大检测公司的总收入为人民币485.2亿元（合68亿美元），净利润总额为人民币163亿元（合23亿美元）。 而中国的政治领导人本身，在战略中投入了如此多的政治和经济资本，也有动力坚持下去。 正如习近平在 6 月对官员们所说，“坚持就是胜利”。
Changes of policy can also provoke a backlash from China’s own elite. Consider what happened in Beijing in July 2022, when the city’s health administration attempted to impose a new vaccine mandate. Under its plan, older citizens who live in retirement homes or elder-care facilities would have to be vaccinated, and anyone who was unvaccinated would be denied access to public facilities such as libraries, museums, and movie theaters. Within hours, however, there was intense pushback on social media—one reason was a lack of confidence in the safety and effectiveness of the Chinese vaccines—and by the next day, the policy was rescinded. In fact, the abrupt reversal was likely the result of pressure from retired officials in Beijing, some of whom are vaccine skeptics and who may have used their influence with the top leadership. Certainly, Xi had every reason to avoid friction with party elders on the eve of the Party Congress.
政策变化也可能引起中国精英阶层的强烈反对。 想想 2022 年 7 月在北京发生的事情，当时该市卫生行政部门试图强制实施新的疫苗接种。 根据其计划，住在养老院或养老机构的老年人必须接种疫苗，任何未接种疫苗的人都将被拒绝进入图书馆、博物馆和电影院等公共设施。 然而，几个小时之内，社交媒体上就遭到了强烈反对——一个原因是对中国疫苗的安全性和有效性缺乏信心——到了第二天，该政策就被取消了。 事实上，这一突然逆转很可能是来自北京退休官员的压力，其中一些人对疫苗持怀疑态度，他们可能利用自己对最高领导层的影响。 当然，习近平完全有理由避免在党代会前夕与党内长老发生摩擦。
Indeed, a final motive for Beijing’s attachment to zero COVID is the political calendar: because of the Party Congress, China’s leaders have made no attempt to prepare the state bureaucracy or Chinese society for the major policy pivot that ending the strategy would require. To the contrary, in the run-up to the meeting, Xi has sought to send a clear and consistent message that his current top domestic priority, the fight against COVID-19, has gone according to plan and has been a resounding success. Any effort to rewrite the script might have muddied the waters, creating doubts about China’s policy direction and making a smooth transition less likely. As a result, despite ever-increasing social and economic costs, the regime has done nothing to change the key components of its signature policy initiative. All of these rationales have further raised the stakes on what will happen after the Party Congress is finished.
事实上，北京坚持动态清零的最后一个动机是政治日历：由于党代会，中国领导人没有试图让国家官僚机构或中国社会为结束该战略所需的主要政策支点做好准备。 相反，在会议召开前夕，习近平试图发出一个明确而一致的信息，即他当前的国内首要任务，即与武汉肺炎的斗争，已按计划进行，并取得了巨大的成功。 任何改写剧本的努力都可能搅浑水，让人对中国的政策方向产生怀疑，并降低平稳过渡的可能性。 因此，尽管社会和经济成本不断增加，但该政权并没有采取任何措施来改变其标志性政策倡议的关键组成部分。 所有这些理由都进一步提高了党代会结束后会发生什么的风险。
ZERO COVID, ZERO GROWTH
零疫情，零增长
Once Xi has been confirmed for a new term in office, his government will finally have to confront its pandemic management problem. For the moment, the regime appears unlikely to change its strategy. In part, this is because Xi’s personal stature is directly and inextricably bound up with the success of the zero-COVID policy. A sudden policy shift is tantamount to admitting failure, which would risk undermining his political authority within the party.
一旦习近平的新任期得到确认，他的政府将最终不得不面对其疫情管理问题。 目前，该政权似乎不太可能改变其战略。 部分原因是习近平的个人地位与动态清零政策的成功密不可分。 突然的政策转变等于承认失败，这可能会破坏他在党内的政治权威。
But China’s deteriorating economic outlook may leave Beijing with little choice. Combined with the worst real estate crisis in a generation, zero COVID has inflicted lasting damage on China’s growth model. According to data compiled by Zheng Yuhuang of Tsinghua University, 460,000 Chinese companies went out of business in the first half of 2022 and 3.1 million private businesses closed down, many of them as a result of lockdown restrictions. In the second quarter of 2022, China’s economic growth fell to just 0.4 percent. Already, major international financial institutions have significantly lowered their growth expectations for China this year.
但中国不断恶化的经济前景可能让北京别无选择。 再加上一代人以来最严重的房地产危机，动态清零对中国的增长模式造成了持久的损害。 根据清华大学郑玉煌编制的数据，2022年上半年中国有46万家企业倒闭，310万家民营企业倒闭，其中许多是由于封锁限制。 2022年第二季度，中国经济增速降至0.4%。 主要国际金融机构已经大幅下调了对中国今年的增长预期。
Even the state-owned Bank of China recently forecast GDP growth of just 3.5 percent, far below the 5.5 percent target the government set earlier in the year. The economic downturn has also squeezed the finances of local governments. With the exception of Shanghai, all of China’s 31 provincial regions posted a deficit in the first seven months of 2022, dangerous shortfalls that raise questions about whether zero-COVID programs can continue to be financed. The Bank of China has estimated that routine PCR testing alone, covering just two-thirds of China’s population, could generate annual expenses of 700 billion yuan (nearly $100 billion).
就连国有的中国银行最近也预测 GDP 增长率仅为 3.5%，远低于政府今年早些时候设定的 5.5% 的目标。 经济低迷也挤压了地方政府的财政。 除上海外，中国 31 个省区在 2022 年前七个月都出现了赤字，这些危险的赤字引发了人们对动态清零能否继续获得资金的质疑。 中国银行估计，仅覆盖中国三分之二人口的常规 PCR 检测每年就可能产生 7000 亿元人民币（近 1000 亿美元）的支出。
For now, the Chinese economy stays afloat largely because of strong growth in exports and the fact that some parts of the country have been less affected by zero COVID. Despite the draconian measures taken in Shanghai and other cities, the number of jurisdictions that have been disrupted by lockdowns remains relatively small overall. But this could soon change. External demand for goods from China is in decline, and Chinese companies are already reporting falling orders. At the same time, with small numbers of cases surfacing in many parts of the country, an ever-increasing number of areas have been subject to snap lockdowns. Chinese state media reported that in early September, COVID-19 infections were reported in more than 100 cities, “the most extensive resurgence of the virus in the past two years.” Accordingly, China recorded more than 3,500 high- or intermediate-risk areas, the highest number since its risk classification system was launched in February 2020. These outbreaks underscore the diminishing effectiveness of Beijing’s total containment strategy.
目前，中国经济之所以能维持生计，主要是因为出口的强劲增长以及该国某些地区受动态清零影响较小的事实。尽管上海和其他城市采取了严厉措施，但因封锁而中断的司法管辖区的数量总体上仍然相对较少。但这可能很快就会改变。对中国商品的外部需求正在下降，中国企业已经报告订单下降。与此同时，由于该国许多地区出现少量病例，越来越多的地区受到快速封锁。中国官方媒体报道称，9 月初，100 多个城市报告了武汉肺炎感染，这是“过去两年来该病毒最广泛的死灰复燃”。因此，中国记录了 3500 多个高风险或中风险地区，这是自 2020 年 2 月启动风险分类系统以来的最高数字。这些疫情突显了北京全面遏制战略的有效性正在下降。
If the government persists in shutting down entire urban areas whenever a few cases arise, China’s economic slowdown could become an economic crisis, in which an extraordinary decline in domestic demand is compounded by a large exodus of foreign capital and near zero economic growth. Already, China’s stumbling economy has led to a youth unemployment of 20 percent, the highest since the government began to release such data in January 2018 and a potentially significant threat to social stability. As the government faces these mounting challenges, a question arises: How can it end zero COVID without undermining its support?
如果政府在少数情况下坚持关闭整个城市地区，中国的经济放缓可能会演变成一场经济危机，在这种危机中，内需的异常下降加上大量外资外流和接近于零的经济增长。 中国经济低迷已经导致青年失业率达到 20%，这是自 2018 年 1 月政府开始发布此类数据以来的最高水平，并可能对社会稳定构成重大威胁。 随着政府面临这些日益严峻的挑战，一个问题出现了：它如何在不破坏其支持的情况下结束动态清零？
PIVOT WITHOUT PANIC
没有恐慌的枢轴
Having held to their strategy for so long, China’s leaders face a hard choice. They know they will need to wind down the policy to put the country on a better economic footing, but they fear it could lead to a larger public health breakdown. Armed with a well-planned exit strategy, however, this dire outcome can be avoided. First, the government can prepare the public for a pivot by changing the way it talks about the pandemic. China’s leaders would have to tell the truth about the severity of the virus and the treatments available for it and allow the media to encourage coexistence with COVID-19. This transition could be made easier if the World Health Organization announces that it no longer considers the disease a “public health emergency of international concern.” By recognizing that the acute phase of the pandemic is over, such a declaration would offer Beijing an indisputable scientific rationale for shifting its approach.
长期坚持自己的战略，中国领导人面临着艰难的选择。 他们知道他们需要放松政策以使该国处于更好的经济基础上，但他们担心这可能导致更大的公共卫生崩溃。 然而，有了精心策划的退出策略，这种可怕的结果是可以避免的。 首先，政府可以通过改变谈论疫情的方式，为公众做好准备。 中国领导人必须实话实说病毒的严重性和可用的治疗方法，并允许媒体鼓励与武汉肺炎共存。 如果世界卫生组织宣布不再将这种疾病视为“国际关注的突发公共卫生事件”，这种过渡可能会变得更容易。 通过承认疫情的严重阶段已经结束，这样的声明将为北京提供一个无可争辩的科学理由来改变其做法。
To prevent the Chinese health-care system from being overwhelmed, the government can and should enforce triage measures that have worked in many other countries. These would include ensuring that only the most severe cases are treated in hospitals while people with minor or asymptomatic cases recover at home, or if conditions do not allow that, in makeshift quarantine centers. The government should also phase out its COVID-19 health QR code, which is used to demonstrate a person’s risk of infection in real time. This would entail abolishing the centralized, state-controlled mass PCR testing and encouraging the use of at-home rapid-test kits.
为了防止中国的医疗保健系统不堪重负，政府可以而且应该执行在许多其他国家都行之有效的分类措施。 这将包括确保只有最严重的病例在医院接受治疗，而轻微或无症状病例的人在家中康复，或者如果条件不允许，则在临时隔离中心进行。 政府还应逐步淘汰其武汉肺炎健康二维码，该二维码用于实时显示一个人的感染风险。 这将需要废除集中的、由国家控制的大规模 PCR 检测，并鼓励使用家庭快速检测试剂盒。
To minimize fear and panic whenever there is a spike in cases, the government could stop providing daily updates on the number of new infections and deaths. In addition, rather than spending billions of dollars on enforcing its zero-COVID policies, Beijing should scale up access to more effective Omicron-specific vaccines and therapeutic treatments. A nationwide vaccination campaign should be introduced as soon as possible to ensure that more than 90 percent of the people over 65 and a majority of the country’s population receive an mRNA booster shot. (As the October 16 opening of the Party Congress draws near, the government has begun to show signs that it is taking the vaccination problem more seriously: In early October, China CDC Weekly published an article calling for the immediate vaccination of the remaining 10 percent of the population.)
为了在病例激增时最大程度地减少恐惧和恐慌，政府可以停止提供有关新感染和死亡人数的每日更新。 此外，北京不应花费数十亿美元来执行其动态清零政策，而应扩大获得更有效的 Omicron 特异性疫苗和治疗方法的机会。 应尽快开展全国性的疫苗接种运动，以确保 90% 以上的 65 岁以上人口和该国大多数人口接受 mRNA 加强注射。 （随着10月16日党代会开幕的临近，政府已经开始表现出更加重视疫苗接种问题的迹象：10月初，《中国疾控周刊》发表文章呼吁对剩余10%的人立即进行疫苗接种。 人口。）
With such measures in place, a relaxation of policy by the Chinese government would lead to a significant increase of COVID cases. But a well-designed exit strategy can prevent the viral wave from leading to a mass die-off. Assuming 10 percent of the population is infected in a short period, with a 0.1 percent case fatality ratio, about 140,000 people, most of them elderly people with a chronic condition, might succumb to COVID. That would be less than twice the annual deaths from seasonal influenza, and China’s health-care system would be able to withstand the outbreak. The economy would be able to get back on track, and Chinese people would learn to coexist with the virus, like their counterparts in the rest of the world.
有了这些措施，中国政府放宽政策将导致武汉肺炎病例显着增加。 但精心设计的退出策略可以防止病毒浪潮导致大规模死亡。 假设 10% 的人口在短期内被感染，病死率为 0.1%，大约 140,000 人，其中大多数是患有慢性病的老年人，可能会死于武汉肺炎。 每年死亡人数将是季节性流感的不到两倍，而中国的医疗保健系统将能够抵御疫情的爆发。 经济将能够重回正轨，中国人将学会与病毒共存，就像世界其他地方的人一样。
But a successful U-turn on zero COVID is out of the question until the top leadership stops portraying the virus as an existential threat. Although Chinese leaders themselves have been vaccinated, they have until now only received China’s ineffective home-grown vaccines. So far, there has been no indication that Xi has changed his mind about the need for mRNA vaccines in view of the dangers posed by the Omicron variant. And yet he seems convinced of the virus’s severity: he was perhaps the only foreign leader to send formal sympathy messages to U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida over the summer when each of them had mild cases of COVID-19. In mid-September, citing concerns about the pandemic, Xi skipped a dinner with 11 heads of state at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the economic and security organization of Asian states that China took the lead in founding in 2001.
但是，在最高领导层停止将病毒描述为生存威胁之前，不可能在动态清零上成功掉头。 虽然中国领导人自己也接种了疫苗，但到目前为止，他们只接种了中国无效的国产疫苗。 到目前为止，鉴于 Omicron 变体带来的危险，没有迹象表明习近平改变了对 mRNA 疫苗需求的看法。 然而，他似乎对这种病毒的严重性深信不疑：他可能是唯一一位在今年夏天向美国总统乔·拜登和日本首相岸田文雄发出正式慰问信息的外国领导人，当时他们每个人都有轻微的武汉肺炎病例。 9 月中旬，习近平以对疫情的担忧为由，在上海合作组织（中国于 2001 年牵头成立的亚洲国家经济与安全组织）峰会上缺席了与 11 位国家元首的晚宴。
The 20th Party Congress may place Xi in a more secure position to pursue his favored policy agenda, but it will not make COVID-19 magically go away. Without a deliberate change of course, China may soon be contending with a policy whose consequences may be as far-reaching—for Beijing as well as for the Chinese people—as the pandemic itself.
第 20 次党代会可能会让习近平处于更安全的位置，以推行他青睐的政策议程，但不会让武汉肺炎神奇地消失。 当然，如果没有刻意改变路线，中国可能很快就会面临一项政策，其后果可能与疫情本身一样对北京和中国人民一样影响深远。标红字体均为楼主更改，与原文作者无关。虽然谷歌机翻的像个鸡巴，但是外交事务杂志确实是非常不错的政治类杂志。很多知名人物比如蔡英文，蓬佩奥，基辛格都在这个杂志上发表过文章。![]()
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