There has been much debate over the efficacy of the lockdown measures taken in China and elsewhere. Given that many of the lockdown measures taken in China involved excessive restrictions on people’s mobility, one might expect such measures to have possibly resulted in widespread discontent and resistance. Yet this expectation stands in sharp contrast with empirical findings that suggest residents are largely compliant with health regulations and citizen satisfaction with the measures is very high across China.
Face-to-face interviews by the authors’ research team demonstrate that Chinese citizen sentiments on their government’s response to COVID-19 are mostly positive. These interviews were conducted in Henan province — the pioneer in launching the most stringent restrictions of all Chinese provinces — and in Hubei province.
Interviews focussed on rural areas because China’s rural residents are estimated to earn one third of what their urban counterparts earn, resulting in one of the highest urban–rural income differentials in the world. This puts rural populations at a disadvantage during and after the imposition of COVID-19 controls. Due to the migration of around 290 million rural labourers to urban areas in search of employment, most people living in China’s villages today are elderly who are among those most vulnerable to the potentially serious effects of COVID-19.
The interviews confirm that the infection control measures were disproportionate to the actual severity of the pandemic. In all of the case study villages, mobility was heavily restricted even though there was not one single case of infection. This was a common occurrence according to a recent large-scale study showing very low infection rates in rural China. Still, the restrictive measures were largely accepted by local people. The interviewees — including village committee members and villagers themselves — reported that residents were generally calm and orderly and observed few lockdown violations.
A few interviewees noted that there was some resistance to health restrictions early on. Some individuals found the lockdown inconvenient and were unwilling to follow the rules. Yet after discussions with village committee members and their own family members, who persuaded them of the dangers of COVID-19, opposition quickly waned.
Even with some discontent, the measures were deemed acceptable. Villagers commonly noted that ‘there was no alternative’ and that restrictions were ‘for everybody’s benefit’. They also indicated a deep trust in the government’s commitment to their wellbeing. In the eyes of many, following lockdown rules was considered to be a patriotic duty and there was widespread identification with a popular saying on the internet that one should ‘make contributions to the country by staying at home’.
There are two key factors contributing to rural residents’ positive reaction to the radical measures. First, the interests of villagers and village committees were aligned with a shared recognition of the dangers of COVID-19 and a consensus on the necessity of strict lockdown measures. This was partly due to memory of China’s 2003 Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak. The shared interests hinged on close intra-group networks and social cohesiveness, which assisted policymakers in implementing the measures. In some cases, health measures were strengthened through localised administrative decisions.
There was also a significant amount of flexibility in lockdown implementation, which allowed room for negotiation at the village level depending on circumstance. Village leaders adapted lockdowns to local characteristics, including geographic features and available human resources. Even where radical forms of lockdown were chosen, local governments could, for example, adjust their strategy to accommodate farming demands. The strategy was to persuade people to abide by the health rules put in place by emphasising the dangers of COVID-19. For the few people who violated the rules, the main strategy remained to reason with them. Coercive or punitive measures were imposed as a last resort.
Rural China’s COVID-19 experience highlights the nuances and effectiveness of grassroots policy implementation. Despite the radical nature of the lockdown measures, they were not implemented with simple top-down coercion. Instead, they involved the bottom-up, localised response of villagers. This kind of policymaking is not entirely new in the academic literature on the nature of China’s political system — described as bargained, fragmented or adaptive authoritarianism — and explains China’s rural conformity to the measures introduced to combat COVID-19.
Xiao Tan is a research fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne.
Mark Yaolin Wang is Professor and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Melbourne.
Yao Song is a visiting scholar at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
Tianyang Liu is Associate Professor at the School of Politics and Public Administration, Wuhan University.
A longer version of this article originally appeared in the Asia Institute’s Melbourne Asia Review.
This article is part of an EAF special feature series on the novel coronavirus crisis and its impact.