‘Humanitarian disaster’: Shanghai residents without food and medicine as harsh lockdown continues

The situation in China’s largest city, where residents have been locked down for more than two weeks, has been labelled a “humanitarian disaster” by an Australian Strategic Policy Institute director.

Small riots have broken out in Shanghai as residents — some who have been left without food and basic medicines — vent their frustration at China’s COVID-zero policy.

Director of Defence, Strategy and National Security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Michael Shoebridge, says it’s “a humanitarian disaster for about 25 million people and it’s a failure of the Chinese government”.

“There’s separation of babies and young children from their parents and there’s brutal behavior from the Chinese police and security agencies,” he told Jimmy Bartel and Shane McInnes, filling in for Ross and Russel.

Mr Shoebridge says the emergence of videos showing the hardships Shanghai residents are enduring reveals the severity of the problem, given the difficulty and risk associated with criticising the Chinese government online.

“Complaints are being called rumormongering by the Chinese authorities, but people’s suffering has been so intense that they’re showing it on social media despite that,” he said.

“It’s a humanitarian disaster and it’s showing the limits of one-man rule in China.”

While lockdown has been eased in parts of the city, that loosening of rules is very minor, with residents allowed out of their apartments but still confined to their apartment complexes.

Mr Shoebridge expects there will be many more lockdowns in China, where 52 million people over the age of 60 remain unvaccinated.

“I think they’ll just keep their mass testing going and they’ll keep relentlessly locking down and they’ll try to address some of the immediate crisis like the food supply,” he said.

Press PLAY below to hear more about the alarming situation

Image: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

上海九亭小区居民没吃的，起事了，跟赶来镇压的警察打了起来。饿坏的上海人民也是敢打警察的。 pic.twitter.com/zk6msLHqgf

— 方舟子 (@fangshimin) April 8, 2022