Hungry, angry people do a hell of a lot more than loot. The Party imposed this lockdown, and the Party is going to get the blowback. The question is if things explode, where would the People’s Armed Police and Peoples Liberation Army stand?
Remember during Tianamen the local military guys would nto fire on the students. Too many friends/relatives in the mix. It took something over 30 days for the Chicoms to bring in units from the back country, who had no local connections, and were willing to start busting heads. But this time a bug is in the mix so I don’t see it working the same way for XI. And the Chicoms are a little short of food nationally anyway.
Note that Shanghai’s population is roughly the same as Kalifornia——that’s a bunch of potentially PO’d people to keep settled down. The chicoms had all they could handle just taking over Hong Kong and the Kongs weren’t even hungry.
Good question. It might depend on whether or not the PLA is hungry.