The time of lockdowns is over in China. Not that cities are no longer paralyzed or residents are locked up: by mid-July 264 million people were fully or partially detained, according to investment bank Nomura. But the word “lockdown” is no longer used for that. Cities are now going into ‘relative standstill’ or ‘quiet period’, or being divided into ‘control and prevention zones’ until they reach ‘social zerocovid’. That sounds a lot better than lockdowns.
The covid pandemic has spawned new words around the world – think of social distancing or source and contact research – but nowhere is the covid vocabulary as extensive as in China. The zero-covid policy is accompanied by so many neologisms that Chinese internet users published a ‘Small Dictionary of Combating the Epidemic’. The original glossary has been censored, but continues to pop up on the Chinese internet and is regularly updated.
In part, this is a normal language phenomenon: the pandemic is a new situation, and that requires new words. But there is more to the Chinese covid neologisms. They are political terms: coming from the government, disseminated by state media, intended to guide public opinion. They are a powerful tool for the Chinese government, especially when combined with censorship and media control, to create an alternative perception of reality.
Neologisms not new
But the question is whether Beijing, with its expanding covid lexicon, will not miss its target. The new terms follow each other in rapid succession, and seem to cause confusion. “Messages need to be simple to work,” said David Bandurski, a journalism professor at the University of Hong Kong and co-director of the research blog China Media Project. “People don’t think, oh, look at how much terminology we have, what scientific and pragmatic governance.”
Coming up with neologisms is not new to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Under party leader Mao Zedong, strict controls on language use within the party, and later throughout society, were already in place. During the Cultural Revolution, wealthy farmers and intellectuals were classified into ‘five black categories’ of ‘class enemies’, and subjected to ‘battle sessions’. The dehumanizing language helped legitimize the violence of the Red Guards.
Language manipulation – also known as ‘linguistic engineering’ – is a proven method of totalitarian regimes to control their populations. ‘Language can shape our thinking,’ says Xu Bian, professor of linguistics at Seattle Pacific University and author of the study The weaponization of Mandarin Chinese. ‘If you use a word for a long time, it becomes ingrained in your thinking and can shape your perception.’
Lifeline of the system
Democratic politicians also engage in framing (see the ‘intelligent lockdown’ of the Rutte cabinet), but that goes much further in China. The CCP not only imposes its own concepts, but censors all dissenting voices and thus creates a monopoly on the image. In 2017, the party even drew up a list of words to praise President Xi. “Discourse building is crucial to how politics works in China,” Bandurski says. “It’s the lifeblood of the political system.”
The covid terms are also intended to determine the perception of the zero-covid policy – nowadays the ‘dynamic social zero-covid policy’. The word ‘lockdown’ has been banned and replaced by ‘static management’, ‘relative standstill’ or ‘quiet periods’. What exactly that means is never clearly explained, but it sounds scientific and thoughtful, and allows the policy to be presented as successful. Lockdowns officially no longer occur in China.
The covid terminology is not conceived centrally, experts say, but arises from a process within the entire party. “There is not one government department that comes up with these words,” Bandurski says. ‘Some terms come from the colloquial language, others are coined by local leaders. They are picked up by state media, then legitimized at the highest level, under Xi Jinping’s acolytes. At the top is Wang Huning of the Central Propaganda Department.’
Resistance is pointless
From there, approved terms are rolled out across society through instructions to media and internet companies and through study sessions for party members, which help to disseminate them further. That is not always a success. “I’ve seen quite a few examples where covid terms aroused skepticism,” says Bandurksi. ‘A lot of jokes and puns are made around the famous ‘green code’, as a way to criticize the policy.’
But many covid terms penetrate into common language, if only because they have such an impact on everyday life. If you want to remain free in China, it is better to know what ‘social contagions’ are, where the ‘lockdown, control and prevention zones’ are located and how ‘secondary contacts’ are determined. These are terms that are well established in China, and form a kind of parallel worldview, with constant threats and deprivation of liberty, under the guise of scientificity.
“Resistance from the minority is futile,” said Luo Xin, a history professor at Peking University, who deplores the politicization of the Chinese language and tries to ban neologisms from his vocabulary. For example, he refused to talk about ‘social infections’ for a long time. “But gradually more and more people started using it, including in my family. It became part of my life. Whether you personally disapprove or approve it doesn’t matter. Language is determined by the majority.’
For internal political use
To what extent covid terminology determines the thinking of ordinary Chinese is difficult to ascertain. But if the CCP’s intention was to appear scientific and thoughtful, Bandurski and Luo say it failed. On the contrary, the succession of euphemisms during the Shanghai lockdown seemed mostly to sow confusion and fear.
“Initially, terms seemed less scary, and a ‘quiet period’ sounded better than a lockdown,” says Luo. “But after a few days we knew it was the same, or worse, because people came into your house to disinfect it. The term didn’t seem scary, but the measures were scarier than scary. If you now say that my neighborhood will be imposed a quiet period, I’ll be shocked.’
The fact that the covid discourse flew out of control is because in addition to terms for public opinion, neologisms also emerged for internal political use. “Local leaders want to show their superiors that they’re on top of it, and that they’re creative,” Luo says. A term such as ‘quiet period’ is mainly used by administrators to show that they are pulling out all the stops. “They don’t address the population, but those to whom they are accountable: their superiors.”
Spread faster than ever
Local politicians use strong covid terms to signal their loyalty to the zero-covid policy and to Xi, in the run-up to the party congress, the CCP’s five-year high mass. “As a provincial leader or ministerial leader, you make such statements in order to bow to the top leader, to show that you stand behind him,” Bandurski says. “It’s a process of aligning in the run-up to the party congress, a power play in the top leagues of Chinese discourse.”
The use of language as a political signal is a constant in Chinese history, but has had a much greater impact on the rest of society in the digital age. “In the past, there was a lot of time between the emergence of a new word and the moment ordinary people heard it,” says Luo. “But now it is possible for a new word to be heard by millions of people in a day or two. The spread is faster than ever.’
Ultimately, the covid discourse — with its clashing terms for public opinion-forming and political consumption — seems to leave many Chinese mostly confused. “That wasn’t necessarily the goal,” Bandurski thinks. ‘But the political system cannot resist coming up with new terms. Many party leaders probably realize that it is too confusing, but they are caught between a simple narrative for the population and their own political language.’
But it can be heard here and there that the confusion created may not be a bad thing for the CCP either, as an extra means of control. “Sowing confusion is also a way to dominate people’s thinking,” says Xu Bian. ‘People have the feeling that they don’t understand anything, and they think: I’ll just do what I’m asked to do. They give up thinking, and don’t ask too many questions. The authorities know: confusion is a way to make people obedient.’
The corona dictionary
Chinese covid terms and their meaning, as far as can be ascertained from descriptions in Chinese and Western media.
Zerocovid (清零, qingling): Chinese government’s initial policy after Wuhan lockdown. With the help of measures such as contact investigation, mass tests and lockdowns, the aim is to achieve zero infections.
Dynamic zerocovid (动态清零, dongtai qingling): introduced in August 2021, after emergence of delta variant. The goal is no longer zero cases, but responding as quickly as possible to any outbreak and stopping transmission.
Social zerocovid (社会面清零, shehuimian qingling): introduced in March 2022, after emergence of omikron variant. Only ‘social infections’ (outside quarantine) count.
Lockdown zone (封控区, fengkongqu): a neighborhood where a newly infected person lives or works, all residents must stay in their own apartment until there are no more cases for a fortnight.
Control zone (管控区, guankongqu): a neighborhood where close contacts or secondary contacts live or work, all residents must remain in their own neighborhood until there are no more cases for a fortnight.
Prevention zone (防范区, fangfanqu): a neighborhood where there is ‘risk of infection’, but which is not under a lockdown or control zone. Restrictions vary from catering closures to restrictions on freedom of movement.
Static management (静态管理, jingtai guanli): euphemism for lockdown. Non-essential shops and businesses closed, mandatory home working, leaving home alone for groceries or medical care.
Silent Period (静默期, jingmoqi): New term for static management, used in Shanghai from May. In practice, the food supply was often also stopped during the quiet period.
Relative standstill (相对静止, xiangdui jingzhi): New term for static management, used in Macau from July to suggest a lighter approach.
Close contact (密接, mijie): anyone who has been in a closed space with an infected person two to five days before the onset of symptoms must go to central quarantine for fourteen (since recently: seven) days.
Secondary contact (次密接, ci mijie): close contact of a close contact, must go to central quarantine for seven days.
Temporal-spatial contact (时空伴随着, shikong bansuizhe): anyone who is within 800 meters of an infected person’s telephone signal for more than 10 minutes. May lead to temporary home quarantine, which will be lifted after two negative tests.