Millions of Chinese are in quarantine

Millions of Chinese are in quarantine - but new business models are emerging out of necessity
Live streaming is booming in China because many cities are cordoned off and people go out of the house less. The Corona epidemic cannot paralyze Chinese innovation, says Frank Sieren.
A total curfew has been in effect in Wuhan since this week. The residents in the epicenter of the coronavirus are only allowed to go outside every three days to buy food. Residential complexes in which infections have been detected are now completely sealed off. Cynical Chinese call it "boiling the frog in cold water": a gradual tightening of the measures, which should lead to the fact that people don't get caught off guard from one day to the next but slowly get used to a dangerous situation. Even in distant Beijing, people just go outside the door to get the bare essentials.
This is an extreme psychological situation for millions of people. It is astonishing how calmly most Chinese are about it. This is also due to the country's good digital connectivity. Even before the collective quarantine, people spent much more time in virtual worlds than the Europeans. Nowhere else can you do as many things online or order goods and food cheaply and easily as in China. The entertainment on the Chinese-language Internet is huge, from countless video and gaming platforms to multifunctional messenger apps like WeChat. Everyday life has almost completely shifted to the Internet, a world that many Chinese have long been familiar with. That reduces the feeling of being locked up.
The world's largest streaming market is now booming
Live streaming is booming. China was the largest live streaming market in the world before the virus crisis. There are ten million active users on around 900 platforms, including countless influencers who have become rich or at least famous through their channels, for example the petite Hu Tongtong, who films himself when eating huge meals, or the charismatic Li Jiaqi, who with his Lipstick tests regularly break sales records on the Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao. You don't have to go outside to see these stars live.
Live streaming is not only a lucrative business in times of the virus: the industry generated sales of $ 4.4 billion in 2018, the auditor Deloitte calculated. The top streamers are often contracted by large companies. But fans can also give them virtual money gifts directly, almost all platforms have a reward function connected to the digital wallet. A digital tip, so to speak. All major Chinese companies now also sell their products via live streaming. As the modern version of classic shopping TV channels, they appeal primarily to young people. Customer loyalty and trust in the products and services is strengthened by the communication, which is perceived as more direct, while the familiar faces of influencers create demand where there was none before.

Concerts, lessons and fitness in the stream
The virus has now ensured that the spectrum in live streaming continues to expand: fitness studios offer more online courses, concert halls organize "cloud festivals" where they broadcast musicians' performances directly from the living room. Tele-instruction is also currently experiencing a boom because schools are closed nationwide. There is now a "national cloud learning platform" that transmits teaching units. In order to guarantee a flawless transmission, Beijing has committed the three largest telecommunications providers China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom to cooperate. Tech giants like Huawei, Baidu and Alibaba also support the platform with bandwidth and 7000 extra servers.
The home office, a working model that has so far been little discussed in China, is experiencing an unprecedented surge thanks to the collective quarantine. The providers of smartwork apps, with which one can hold video conferences online, for example, benefit from this. DingTalk, an application from Alibaba in the Chinese app stores, quickly went from 37th to third place. Other corporate communication apps such as Tencent's WeChat Work are also in greater demand than ever. Many workers are now even complaining about more workload, as the boundaries between work and leisure are increasingly blurring without clear regulations. Some companies apparently also require their employees to stream selfie videos regularly from their home office, so that nobody turns blue. According to the motto: trust is good, control is better. After all, instead of getting ready for the office, you can simply put a beauty filter over your face for the video conference with the apps.
None of this would be possible without a fast internet connection and the Chinese being open to new technology. Even an epidemic cannot paralyze the Chinese 's adaptability and willingness to experiment. On the contrary: you make a virtue of necessity.
Contribution to people cohesion
The government has also recognized the potential of live streaming and is making intensive use of it, for example by broadcasting a health commission conference online or by building the emergency hospital in Wuhan. At peak times, use on the construction site was viewed by over 60 million people at the same time. Boredom, many certainly watched the finished parts being screwed together. And yet this has also contributed to the cohesion of people. All of this helps keep people in line and minimizes the feeling of losing control. The immediacy of live streaming reminds people that they are not alone in this extreme psychological situation. Shared suffering is half suffering - especially when it is streamed millions of times.
A recent product launch by the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Xiaomi showed how important and emotional this exchange can be. Before the founder of the company, Lei Jun, who was most severely affected by the virus in Hubei, went on the agenda, he personally addressed the audience: "Wuhan is a city of heroes. The people there are brave, confident and optimistic. Our lives like that Epidemic will be affected, it will not defeat us, "said Lei with a face mask and tears in her eyes. This is not just propaganda, as some in the West might suspect. For the trapped people, that's an important message from one of them. In the end, it will be such images, texts and experiences of virtual cohesion that will remain in the collective memory of the virus epidemic in addition to the suffering and unreasonable demands in China.
Our columnist Frank Sieren has lived in Beijing for over twenty years.