Urban Villages, Grid Management, and the Contradictions of Capital

Critics and pundits in China and abroad described the population-control measures of China’s zero-Covid policy as the ‘return’ of an all-encompassing state control akin to that of the Maoist period. While that claim is dubious, such assumptions tend to obscure the ways in which the rollout of the zero-Covid policy throughout 2021 and 2022—particularly the use of grid management (网格化管理) as a tool of population control—relied on capitalist mechanisms, such as the mobility of people, commodities, and capital.

Duke Scholars

Author Nellie Chu DKU Faculty