Even after the long-awaited reopening, Shanghai will never be the same

A GLIMMER of light might finally be appearing at the end of the longer-than-expected tunnel that Shanghai’s lockdown has been. On Monday (May 16), deputy mayor Zong Ming said that from June 1 till mid- and late June, the city would work towards restoring “normal production and life”.

But with expectations having been spurned each step of the way so far, the announcement has met with wary scepticism from both residents and businesses in the commercial hub.

Back in March, few would have imagined that China’s most modern city could grind to such a halt. As late as Mar 26, Shanghai officials were insisting that the city would aim to avoid a full lockdown.

Yet just the next day, a two-stage lockdown was announced instead, to begin on Mar 28. Originally meant to last just four days for each half of the city, the lockdown has now dragged on for seven weeks and counting.

Shanghai had previously aimed to stop community transmission by Apr 20, sparking hopes that an easing of curbs would be possible then. But when the day came, officials instead pledged to step up enforcement measures.

The drawn-out lockdown’s erosion of trust has not been helped by an arguable gap between official pronouncements and everyday realities.

In the early days, all-is-well statements contrasted with anecdotal reports of food shortages. Further into the lockdown, even as there was incremental easing in some neighbourhoods, fences and barricades were being put up in others.

Strict measures have been derided as being less about public health and more about bureaucracy or hygiene theatre, from patients being sent to quarantine facilities weeks after testing positive – even if they had already recovered – to empty streets being sprayed with disinfectant.

With case numbers having been brought down to a trickle, the latest June timeline might finally prove achievable.

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Yet even if the city regains its bustling pace, on some more fundamental level, Shanghai will never be the same again.

Before the lockdown, there had been the assumption that Shanghai was somehow different; that the heavy-handed measures elsewhere could not possibly be applied there.

That illusion has been shattered. The past weeks have shown that even China’s chief financial and business hub will not be spared the toughest of measures, and that economic growth must make way for political considerations.

The Shanghai shutdown has been estimated to cost global trade and supply chains some US$28b, with the clothing, textile and motor vehicle industries the most impacted, and possibly reduce overall Chinese GDP by 4 per cent this year.

Shanghai’s experience will loom over any assessment of China’s wider zero-Covid strategy, and the country’s possible path forward in a world where other major economies have chosen to live with the virus.

And such assessments – at both the personal and corporate level – may affect Shanghai’s position as a cosmopolitan business hub. After this long lockdown, it remains to be seen if reopening will herald a return to normalcy – or enable an exodus, given the high social and economic costs exacted.