Covid transparency call a rare surprise

People like Hu Xijin are thought to be in the know and would have been expected to adopt a low profile in the runup to the Chinese Communist Party's upcoming national congress.

Although municipal governments have largely followed the tradition of enforcing increased control at the local level before the CCP's 20th National Congress next month, Hu departed from the norm that he would have been expected to stick to in view of his official background as the former editor-in-chief of state media Global Times.

Instead of keeping quiet ahead of the major political event that will shape the future leadership, Hu had quite a bit to say - and even dwelled on the sensitive issue of pandemic control.

In the mainland, zero or dynamic zero-Covid policy is not only about medicine, but also politics.

With local governments like Shenzhen following the long-standing norm of imposing tight controls on their respective jurisdictions at the first sight of even a few Covid cases, it was uncharacteristic for Hu to call for greater transparency to be given to the Covid policy and for epidemic experts to be allowed to speak out.

That's all rather curious.

Hu is a celebrated commentator in the mainland and his comments in the past were often controversial. For instance, his assertion that PLA jet fighters would fly in parallel to US House speaker Nancy Pelosi's special flight if she dared visit Taiwan failed to surprise anyone.

After the weekend, the Shenzhen government did what was expected after it discovered a handful of Covid cases. It immediately shut down a few local neighborhoods amid reports of clashes between police and residents angry about the lockdowns.

In contrast, Hu did what was not expected of the semi-official role he has continued to play since he left the Global Times.

He is probably also feeling a level of fatigue over lockdowns that have been imposed repeatedly in different places throughout the mainland.

Otherwise, he would not have declared that more and more mainlanders were finding the policy unbearable - let alone his rather brave calls for Covid experts to speak up, while urging the country to conduct comprehensive research and release the outcome to the public.

At a time when the Covid policy is also political, his appeal for discussion on the pandemic to be backed by science can only be described as unusual.

In stating such, Hu opened a new debate focused on the mainland's long-standing zero, or dynamic, Covid policy.

Although such a pandemic-control approach has been the subject of debate in Hong Kong, it is extremely rare in the mainland as the social atmosphere across the border is rather different from that of the SAR.

Reports of Shenzhen residents protesting could be a sign of increasing lockdown fatigue there.

Hong Kong has been able to shift its pandemic control strategy into the lower gear of "0+3" but it would be unrealistic to expect a major downshift in the mainland's approach before the upcoming CCP national congress.

Things will only become clearer once that crucial meeting is over.