Why I Decided to Leave China After Four Years
Although the coronavirus lockdowns have ended in much of the world, China is the only country as of 2022 that is still trying to stick with a zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19. This may seem baffling to many foreigners, but China has its reasons. The state media of China has defended this approach by saying that herd immunity would be even more devastating to their economy than reopening at this point. I am not sure if I agree with this statement, but a big reason why I left China was because of this mindset of the Chinese government.
Based on my experience in China over the past few years during the pandemic, it seems that China has gone in almost the complete opposite direction as the rest of the world with implementing lockdowns. With some major exceptions like Wuhan, China did not completely shut down many cities in the early days of the pandemic unlike countries across the rest of the world. Many thought, myself included, that China was well on its way to declaring a permanent victory over Covid-19.
The Impact of Omicron on China
The school year of 2021–2022 started relatively normally enough, or as normal as can be expected with China’s strict measures to contain the pandemic. I was still expected to be back in Wuxi fourteen days earlier than the start of the semester which was a bit annoying to me. We started again at least with in-person classes, unlike many areas in the United States which were still doing online classes. The travel restrictions were back in place at least for a while. Towards the end of the first semester, however, I was able to go to nearby cities such as Suzhou and Shanghai.
With the outbreak of Omicron, however, things began to change drastically in China, so much in my opinion that China in the pandemic should be divided into Before-Omicron and After-Omicron. Because Omicron is far more transmissible than other variants, it can evade many countermeasures that China has put in place to control the spread of Covid-19. One of the most visible reminders of this was the two-month lockdown recently in Shanghai. To date, the city has not quite fully recovered from this and likely will not for some time. A friend of mine has written extensively about the lockdown during Shanghai from his point of view.
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Not just Shanghai, but many other cities have been locked down and are still locking down even as I type this. After Shanghai, it seemed like Beijing was going to suffer the same fate, but a full lockdown never came to pass as of yet. The resort city of Sanya on Hainan Island has recently had tourists trapped there with no way of returning home. And presently, it seems as if Chengdu and Shenzhen are going through lockdowns as well.
Wuxi During the Omicron Outbreak
Fortunately, around the time of the Shanghai lockdown, Wuxi never went through a full shutdown where no one is allowed to even go outside of their homes. There was, however, a partial lockdown. Public transportation and taxis stopped operating, and recreational public areas were shut down. Also for the first time since the early days of the pandemic, my school and other schools in Wuxi were forced back into online classes. The only places that remained open were hospitals and grocery stores, with takeout being the only option for restaurants to continue operating.
There were also big changes taking place. Nearly every apartment complex like mine had a guard permanently posted at the entrance to check everyone’s temperatures and to make sure no one was leaving the city. Compulsory mass testing for Covid-19 in Wuxi was becoming more and more common. For long periods, it was happening every single day. In case you are wondering how they enforce this mass testing on millions of people in these cities, the answer is with more technology. In addition to the health code and the travel code, China now has a code that records previous Covid-19 test results. If you evade said tests or if they turn up a positive result, then you are either sent off to a quarantine camp or you are locked out of virtually every space in China. Conveniently, my school hosted Covid-19 testing so on most days I just tested there.
I have to say though, I knew that Chinese people were obedient, but I was still astonished at how there was little to no resistance to all this forced testing and mass lockdowns and being led off to quarantine camps. This would have been enough to cause a massive revolt in virtually almost every other country, but from what I saw Chinese people went through it with little visible resistance if any. Perhaps they feel powerless against the system? Or is it that they genuinely believe that this is the way to protect public health? From what I asked of them, opinions were varied, so maybe a mixture of both reasons depending on the person in question.
Why I Left China
So as you could imagine, I was not eager to stay in China where mandatory mass testing every day and mass lockdowns with little warning could happen. Coincidentally, there was a full lockdown beginning to spread in Wuxi just as I was getting ready to leave China. So my last day in Wuxi was filled with uncertainty and tension as I suddenly became a refugee from these unending lockdowns. Fortunately, I was able to get ahead of the city locking down completely by leaving several days earlier than I expected. Ultimately, I found temporary refuge in a hotel near the airport in the city that was just beginning to emerge from its two-month lockdown: Shanghai.
I was not the only person who decided to leave China, as there is a mass outmigration of foreigners this year in the face of the pandemic without end. Another reason why I left was that I was not able to see my family since 2019 due to heavy travel restrictions on being able to enter China, even for those with a work visa. So I suppose this reason does relate as well to the Covid-19 restrictions that permeate almost every aspect of life in China that seems unimaginable to people who have never experienced them.
In conclusion, I would have to say I very much miss China before the pandemic. Then it seemed that China was a very different world in that foreigner(or anyone for that matter) could freely enter and leave China while being permitted to travel just about anywhere in the country. I do hope that China will reverse course and end the pursuit of its zero-tolerance policy toward Covid-19, but unfortunately, I see little chance of that happening in the immediate future. Despite Covid-19 and the lockdowns, I still believe that China has a lot of potentials and will play an important role in the future of humanity, and I am grateful for having had the opportunity to work and live in China.
