90% of the Chinese government's job is just saving face. They have the emotional maturity of a child, which makes sense because the whole system they have is re

90% of the Chinese government's job is just saving face. They have the emotional maturity of a child, which makes sense because the whole system they have is relatively new. So pretending and acting as if the virus is some sort of foreign threat that can be curbed by 0-covid strategies (which failed even for hermetically sealed countries) is all part of that face saving campaign. They want to look like the country that had Covid under control—at all costs.