By Martin Quin Pollard

BEIJING, (Reuters) – When Shanghai implemented its draconian COVID-19 lockdown, two months ago Sun Wu, a 22-year old French waiter, was fired.

Sun was able to make ends meet by helping with government deliveries. Sun earned 250 yuan (about $38) per day, and moved from a dormitory in order to move into the warehouse.

He had to vacate the warehouse after three weeks. The girlfriend of a migrant worker, who worked at the restaurant’s front desk, required urgent medical attention.

Sun, who was short on ambulance services, paid 500 yuan to have a delivery driver take her to the hospital. Sun had surgery for a stomach cancer that night.

He continued to be there for her until May 6, when she was released. He purchased flowers for her and brought them to their dormitory.

Sun was not allowed to travel.

Due to COVID regulations, the warehouse couldn’t take him back and his dorm didn’t have enough space to properly isolate him. He was unable to return home to Dali in southwest Yunnan, which is 3,000 km away.

He said, “I felt like I didn’t have any cards left to play.”

China’s inflexible “zero COVID” policies are a major problem for the world’s second-largest country. Shanghai’s 25 million inhabitants complain of lost income, difficulty sourcing food and mental stress. Migrant workers are often unable to work at home and earn steady wages.

Over 290 million Chinese-speaking migrants are employed in coastal mega-cities. They come from the vast rural areas of China and seek work in low-skilled industries, factories, restaurants, or other jobs. Some can make more than 10,000 yuan per month, but the majority of them are paid hourly and have no stable employment contracts.

They have helped to make cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen bastions of Chinese prosperity through their cheap labor.

Lockdowns, however, have lead to many people in difficult situations. This is at a time President Xi Jinping expects to win an unprecedented third term as leader this year and has called for “common prosperity”.

While their plight is getting sympathy, stories such as Sun’s have gone viral. However, with the widespread suffering caused by the lockdown and so many people in it, there has been very little support for migrant workers.

ROUGH SLEEPS

Sun was forced to invent, as migrant workers do often.

He grabbed his bike from the parking lot and pedalled along Shanghai’s empty roads, past high-rise office buildings to locate a spot to put up a tent that he had purchased for travel.

Sun reported that Sun’s girlfriend “did not cry” in hospital. Sun said, “That night I left her crying.”

The first night, he discovered a piece of grass close to a subway station. On the second night, he found a park. Next came a shopping center. Finally, a pedestrian bridge. The security kept him from returning.

Day to day, he was able to eat food prepared by his girlfriend while they chatted in gaps between the walls of their compound.

Sun claimed that he saw “hundreds of” homeless people while cycling.

Numerous migrant workers are often homeless or stuck in cramped dorms. They also spend their nights at work, or sleeping on the construction or factories sites. Many truckers spend days stuck on the highways and are unable to travel through large cities without being quarantined.

“Once again, migrant workers are treated as cheap and disposable,” said Diana Fu, an expert on Chinese politics and labour at the University of Toronto.

DESPAIR

The streets were flooded the 7th night Sun was there. The man didn’t know what to do and called for assistance from the police.

Sun stated that an officer had “told” him to solve the problem.

Reuters reached Shanghai police and Shanghai government for comments but they did not reply to our requests. In late April, Shanghai’s government stated that companies will be directed to care for migrants by the Shanghai government.

Sun used social media to help his sadness

In a May 12 posting on Weibo (NASDAQ), he said that he had slept in parks, in plazas and seen Lujiazui around 3 AM. He also wrote about Shanghai’s financial district.

“I want to stay in a nice place and have a good meal.”

This post was widely shared, causing outrage over the absence of support mechanisms to migrants. The problem stems from China’s hukou (residence registration system) which was created in the 1950s.

Many migrants are denied healthcare, education and access to other services because they lack a hukou. Although policymakers made numerous promises of reforms, it has not been possible for some migrant workers to access hukous in smaller cities.

Sun might have won sympathy but policymakers seem to be more worried about urban youth unemployment. Many workers who are migrants haven’t lost their job due to lockdowns. They just lost most of or all of what they earn.

Only 6.6% is the unemployment rate among migrant workers, which is just a fraction of overall joblessness. Urban youth’s unemployment has increased to 18.2% due to a decline in corporate employment and the regulatory crackdowns that have been applied to tech and private education.

Valarie Tan from the Mercator Institute for China Studies said that migrants aren’t in the mind of (Chinese Communist Party) Party at the moment. She argued one-party rule is necessary to keep the middle class optimistic about the future.

Asked for comment about the plight of rural migrants, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs shared a summary of measures taken to help them amid the pandemic which said it “attaches great importance to the relief and assistance work for people in distress due to the epidemic”.

These measures include an introduction of a hotline as well as a subsidy “one-time”, for those in financial need, such immigrants without unemployment insurance and migrants who haven’t worked for 3 consecutive months.

Another police officer called Sun the day following Sun’s Weibo posting. A government quarantine facility was called and he was placed in a tent that was larger than the one occupied by another migrant worker.

Shanghai is still under lockdown. However, some trains run again. Sun, his girlfriend, and a train to Taizhou (500 kilometres South) where they have family, took place on Thursday.

The residents will be kept in quarantine for 2 weeks and then they’ll wait for Shanghai to reopen. While the city is indicating its intentions to reopen by June, details about how extensive and when it will occur are still unknown.

Sun stated, “This nightmare might end.” Sun said, “And then another one will be.”