Sanitized, rectified, resolutely Chinese: welcome to the new Shanghai

Michael Kappeler/dpa via Reuters Connect

China's most international megalopolis, is sruggling to regain its cosmopolitan energy in the wake of Xi Jinping's centralising takeover.

Sebastien Falletti, in Shanghai

On the crowded terrace of Polux, Paul Pairet 's beef tartare is still a big hit in Xintiandi. The language of Molière collides with Mandarin or English on the tables of the starred chef's retro bistro, offering a resolutely cosmopolitan Parisian flavour in the heart of Shanghai. Tourists and business travellers are back in China's largest metropolis, which was sealed off during the pandemic. "It's coming back! People are arriving from Paris", enthuses Pairet, who runs three establishments in the city and sees the end of the tunnel with a gourmet smile.

His bistro has become a refuge for the French community in the age of Zero Covid, but his iconic Mr&Mrs Bund brasserie, overlooking the glittering skyscrapers of Pudong, is still struggling to regain its cruising speed as it awaits the visitors from all over the world who used to flock there. Upstairs, the legendary "Red Bar", with its vertiginous terrace overlooking the Huangpu River, a must-see during China's breathtaking take-off, has closed its doors. As has 'M on the Bund', overlooking the quays of the metropolis of 23 million inhabitants, opposite the city's business district, an institution whose Australian boss has thrown in the towel.

It's a symbol of the shrinking horizon of Shanghai, the international showcase of Communist China and the heart of the world's second-largest economy, forced to turn its back on the world as President Xi Jinping takes ideological control. And it is trying to regain its global appeal despite the Chinese slowdown, Beijing's dirigisme and geopolitical tensions.

Bund

"We've been seeing foreigners again since the beginning of the year. And that's good! The level of English and the quality of service had plummeted," says a long-established French entrepreneur. Visa exemption for visitors from several European countries, including France since1 December, has boosted tourist flows. A timid rebound has given a cosmopolitan veneer to a city that has seen a spectacular collapse in the number of expatriates in recent years, accelerated by a merciless lockdown in the spring of 2022. The French community has shrunk by two-thirds since 2014, the peak of Shanghai's attraction in the aftermath of the Universal Expo: it was then estimated at over 20,000, compared with 6,150 registered with the Consulate today. "The confinement was a trauma. Shanghai has lost its allure. Families no longer want to come. There is a shortage of international talent and foreign students," explains Carlo d'Andrea, vice-president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC).

In the spring of 2022, the authorities draconianly locked up the population of the prosperous conurbation, imposing food rationing, almost daily Covid tests and even banning people from crossing the threshold of their flat to buy food. Hunger grips the most isolated, and suicide attempts are rife in the ghostly megalopolis. Parents are separated from their children who have tested positive, triggering an exodus of expatriates. According to the EUCCC, a quarter of French and German expatriates left the city in the wake of the health crisis. Most never returned. "We don't see any expats returning in large numbers", notes a diplomat in China.

Under the plane trees of the former French concession, the metamorphosis is spectacular. Western faces are now rare in this district, long a favourite with expatriates, and the trendy cafés are overflowing with young, trendy locals sipping "meishi" (American coffee) instead. The decor of the Lotus Bleu has been transformed into a Chinese 'Marais' in the age of gentrification, with a few less decibels. On the pavement, electric cars, mainly of Chinese make, glide silently by, testifying to the upmarket industrial status of the "world factory". Even scooters and cyclists now obey the traffic lights at crossroads, which are patrolled by the omnipresent police. Order reigns in Shanghai, long a rascal.

Under the tall trees of Anfu lu, wine bars have given way to fashion boutiques that have taken over the old half-timbered colonial villas dating back to the splendour of the 1930s. Trendy restaurants have been taken over by local owners, filling the void left by the 'laowai' (foreigners) who have packed their bags. The decor is the same, but the clientele has become more localised. "I serve the same menu, but now most of the people in the dining room are Chinese", says Nicolas, the owner of a well-known French restaurant on Huahai Avenue.

Shanghai is becoming more Chinese and more orderly, closing the parenthesis of the crazy years at the beginning of the century, when it was the Eldorado of party-loving, even loud-mouthed foreigners, armed with their dollars. The reclamation of urban space that has been underway for the past decade, in tune with the emergence of the Asian giant, has been accompanied by a refinement of the local bourgeoisie, the most prosperous in China. "Shanghai has never been so sophisticated. The new generations have travelled and are proud of their Chinese identity. They say: I love China!" says Jing Yang, founder of the design agency "Bonjour Brand", who has returned to the country after years in France.

The whore of the West

And yet, as they scratch the surface, Shanghainese are recounting the buried but never healed trauma of a sequence experienced as a new political imposition by Beijing. So much so that it is reminiscent of 1949, when Mao's troops crossed the Yangtze to "liberate" the city from the routed Nationalists of Chiang Kai Chek. "The confinement was a turning point. Beijing felt that Shanghai was straying from the line", says Dan Wang, an economist at Hang Seng Bank. The municipality, which prided itself on its efficient management of Covid, was brutally relegated to the rank of a provincial city by the dictates of the local Party General Secretary, Li Qiang, who was parachuted in by the supreme leader. "Shanghainese have fallen from grace! They dreamed of being the new New York, but they were treated like Wuhan. There's been no catharsis since", says a local diplomat. Once again, the "whore of the West", as the Great Helmsman called this city that had been ravaged by "capitalism" and the colonial West, has to fall into line.

Even today, the arrogantly prosperous megalopolis remains sulphurous in the eyes of a President Xi who is nostalgic for frugal communism and preaches an outspoken nationalist renaissance. Behind the white hazmat suits of the health squads, the bright red of the most centralising leader since Mao stands out. In the "new era" proclaimed by Xi, no head or metropolis should be allowed to tower above the others, and each must work diligently to bring about the "great rebirth of the Chinese nation", walking in a straight line. "Shanghai has always been a suspect city in the eyes of the Party because of its international openness. The health crisis has highlighted the fact that ideology takes precedence, and that there is now only one leader. Shanghainese have discovered their vulnerability and that they are the plaything of superior forces", maintains this diplomat.

Behind closed doors, its mercantile inhabitants are once again talking politics, after having ignored for too long, all business, the ideological shift at work in Beijing over the last decade. A handful even dared to take to the streets of Wulumuqi to demonstrate against Beijing's authoritarianism in November 2022, at the forefront of a protest movement unprecedented in decades, but quickly suppressed.

The appointment of the obedient Li as prime minister in 2023, who is hated by the city's residents, marks a final humiliation, burying for good the golden age of the city, when its leaders played the leading roles at the top of the Communist apparatus, in the image of former mayor Jiang Zemin, figurehead of the "Shanghai clique" who became president of the People's Republic from 1993 to 2003.

The country's centralising drive, under the banner of self-sufficiency and the "fight" against "American encirclement", is instigating an insidious identity crisis in China's most cosmopolitan metropolis. Admittedly, the city is struggling to catch up with multinationals scalded by tensions with the United States. Foreign investment in China is at its lowest level for 30 years, and is set to fall by 80% by 2023. Shanghai is stepping up its charm offensive to attract big names and maintain its international profile, like the new Puy du Fou show launched in May. But it is coming up against the limits set by Beijing and the growing scepticism of businesses, against a geopolitical backdrop dominated by the spectre of escalation in Taiwan. "Shanghai still has ambitions to be an international financial centre, but it is struggling to find its place in the jigsaw of today's China," says Steven Basart, EUCCC's local general manager. And its dreams of eclipsing Wall Street are evaporating as the Chinese economy refocuses.

On a day-to-day basis, the sprawling, well-oiled urban machine is becoming more pleasant to live in for those who can afford to live there. New museums and galleries, including a branch of the Centre Pompidou, are springing up along the West Bund, an airy promenade popular with joggers and cyclists. The city is continuing to move upmarket, despite the property crisis. However, the capital that once dreamed of dethroning Manhattan is now gripped by the blues.

"The quality of life is much better than it was ten years ago, but the big difference today is that Shanghainese have become pessimistic," says Frank Tsai, founder of conference organiser China Crossroads. They look nostalgically in the rear-view mirror, as shown by the recent success of Wong Kar Wai's series "Blossoms Shanghai", which tells the story of a millionaire's rise from nothing in the 1990s, at a time when the city embodied China's "opening up to the world" as it took off. After Hong Kong, the director of the legendary "In the Mood for Love" once again revives the great era of a city where everything seemed possible, and which is now falling into line with imperial Beijing. "On the surface, everything seems perfect. But the spirit of Shanghai is gone," confides d'Andrea, from his office overlooking the glittering skyscrapers of Xintiandi.

Copyright @lefigaro

Here is the original article: https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/voyage-dans-la-nouvelle-shanghai-sinisee-et-assagie-depuis-le-covid-20240622