Is the Chinese leadership engaged in a similar repeat of the mistake of Romania’s nefarious former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu? While the specifics of the situation are very much different, there appears to be a discernible pattern between the two nations’ communist regimes when it comes to addressing big issues.

In Ceausescu’s case, it was his determination to eliminate all of his country’s foreign-owed debt, with the goal of making Romania entirely debt free and not beholden to any international bank. Ceausescu took an economy that had become the envy of Eastern Europe and nearly destroyed it. In many ways, Ceausescu’s debt-free dream, which was actually achieved mere months before he was deposed and executed but came about only through the implementation of severe austerity measures, looks similar to Beijing’s “Zero COVID” policy.

Shanghai, China’s largest and wealthiest city and home to some 25 million residents, is currently under an extreme and sustained lockdown as the communist leadership attempts to control a COVID outbreak. Beginning in late March, as cases of the Omicron variant began spreading in the city, the officials initiated a citywide lockdown, with infected individuals forced into centralized quarantine centers, while everyone else was ordered to remain locked in their homes.

China continues to ridiculously boast having fewer than 5,000 COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic. That figure is surely not even a fraction of the real total, but whatever the case, tyrannical lockdowns are the norm.

As part of Beijing’s Zero COVID strategy, the streets of one of the world’s largest cities became a veritable ghost town, as all car traffic was forbidden on the roads except for emergency uses. This policy includes a maximum isolation policy, which sadly also means the brutal and shocking killing of quarantined individuals’ pets. Several videos have emerged on social media showing government workers in hazmat suits beating pet dogs to death with sticks and shovels.

Worse, this panicked tyranny is all due to the Omicron variant, which, although highly contagious, has also proven to be the least lethal variant so far. In fact, thanks to Omicron, many parts of the U.S. with the most draconian COVID protocols saw those measures exposed for being essentially useless against the novel virus, leading to the realization that society will just have to learn to live with COVID like it does the flu.

And here’s where there is another connection to Ceausescu’s zero-debt policy. In the late 1970s, there was a global economic downturn that also impacted the Romanian economy. However, unlike other countries with debt issues, Ceausescu embraced an extreme policy that needlessly hurt his own economy and the Romanian people, as they suffered through austerity measures that led to food shortages, rolling blackouts, and high taxation.

Beijing won’t admit that the coronavirus and its variants will not stop or be limited by a Zero COVID policy. COVID is simply a reality, and we’re going to have to live with it. Shutting down an entire city for weeks, where people are now struggling for basic food supplies — never mind the hit to China’s economy — will in the end do nothing to stop COVID. The only question is, how many Shanghai residents will die for Beijing’s pride? How much needless mental and physical damage has China’s communist government meted out against its own citizens? The trouble is, unless these draconian measures lead to the downfall of the the communist government, there will be little reconsideration. In an authoritarian regime, the position and power of the authority is all that matters, and Shanghai is demonstrating just how bad that kind of regime is for millions of innocent people.