The Zero COVID Policy in a Game Theory Model

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Abstract

China’s Zero COVID policy started from the public outrage towards the government’s coverup of the COVID outbreak in Wuhan and ended with another public outrage towards the prolonged lockdown. Why was the same policy a solution as well as a cause of public discontent? Both the beginning and the end of the policy come as a U-turn with limited explanation and preparation. The former put 12 million people in Wuhan in lockdown but rescued lives in the initial rage of the virus. The latter put 1.4 billion Chinese in the wild virus outbreak, but the aftermath remains to be discovered. What contributes to the preference change of the Chinese government and Chinese citizens? What is the calculation of their interests in the strategic interaction?

In the strategic interaction between the Chinese government and Chinese citizens, propaganda plays a crucial role. It constructs a narrative reality by mixing the mis-and-dis-information with social reality. It cognitively shapes how citizens calculate their payoffs and have an add-on effect on the government’s payoff when it is largely in line with the social reality. When the discrepancy between the two realities overextended, both government and the citizens have to pay more on maintaining the equilibrium and the chance of exposing social reality to a large population becomes possible. Meanwhile, exiting from a worsening policy in which legitimacy has built on a narrative reality is costly, especially under the condition of the overburdened political interests of the powerful few. The changing nature of the virus and the critical moment of political change create a natural experiment for modeling strategic interaction in China.

In this paper, I built a game theory model for the three-year Zero COVID policy and backed them with empirical data from China’s economic index, social media sentiment analysis, and COVID data in and out of China. It contributes to our understanding of authoritarian politics and its unique relationship with the dis-and-mis-information.

Author

• Jingding Wang, Syracuse University