Why China's Zero COVID Policy?

The Chinese real estate bubble is bursting! 

Millions of people are at risk of losing all of their personal wealth, as it is normal for citizens to put their entire life savings into real estate in that country. In fact, 70% of all wealth in China is held in the form of homes and condos - usually safe bets that are about to go bust.

These people are getting organized. They are demonstrating daily across the country against real estate developers and banks, even in the face of viscous police suppression. 

Beyond that, up to 300 real estate developments have seen prospective home owners stop paying their mortgages until they get assurances that their homes will actually get built, or they get their money back. Note - they are "prospective" as buying a home in China and taking on a mortgage means buying a home that will only be built at some point in the future. As in, millions of people have put down their entire life savings and are paying mortgages on properties that don't actually exist.

This movement is spreading rapidly, and is risking the political control of the country by the Chinese Communist Party.

Enter...a Zero COVID policy.

The CCP sees everything through a political lens. One purpose of this Zero COVID policy is most assuredly to shut down the ability of citizens to organize and demonstrate against anyone - banks, developers, or local governments - as a result of the collapsing real estate bubble. 

The Zero COVID policy is enforced by the police and even by the army, including the use of armoured vehicles. If the goal is to keep the populace under wraps, this policy should do the trick. Every time the CCP or its banker and developer buddies face a serious problem in the way of a demonstration or a protest, the CCP will simply declare that a single COVID case has been found in the city in question and shut it down.

One city, one protest; one COVID patient, no problem!

But wait. May there be one small problem with this plan? 

Do you think any police officers or military personnel have bought prospective houses and have also lost their life savings?  

Many a dictatorship has ended when the cops and army decided to abandon repression and side with the people instead.

Stay tuned...