‘The pandemic has made the Chinese • Table.Briefings

Sociologist Bin Xu from Emory University in Atlanta is researching the socio-cultural consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sociologist Bin Xu researches man-made disasters. In this interview, he explains why Beijing’s Covid policy hit China’s middle and upper middle classes particularly hard. The state continues to shy away from reappraising the way it handled the pandemic.

Beijing abruptly abandoned its „zero COVID“ policy at the end of 2022. Many in the West perceived this step as surprising and contradictory. Was the government more successful within China in communicating the logic of suddenly abandoning the draconian policies?

‘The pandemic has made the Chinese realize that their basic rights are at risk’

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