Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, waved at the crowd of enthusiastic students. He held meetings with Olympic Games officials, economic policy makers and European leaders. He visited a tropical island.
But there was an open gap in Xi’s busy April itinerary, highlighting the plight that covid is building into a politically significant year when it hopes to increase its grip on power. He has been behind the scenes when it comes to China’s biggest, most controversial lockdown since the pandemic began.
During April, Xi made no public speech focused on the outbreak as his largest city in China, Shanghai, shut down to try to contain the infection and then went on alert after cases erupted in Beijing. Nor did Xi directly address Shanghai’s 25 million residents, who have been ordered to stay home for weeks, despite complaints of scarce food, overwhelmed hospitals and confusing zigzags in mass quarantine rules.
“He deliberately wants to keep a certain distance”, said Deng Yuwen, a former editor of the Communist Party newspaper who lives in the United States, from Shanghai. “No doubt, he’s doing a lot about fighting the pandemic behind the scenes, but of course he doesn’t want to get directly into the mess in Shanghai.”
Instead Xi’s orders are passed on to subordinates or through meeting summaries. He has cited their demand to stick to a “dynamic zero-Covid” goal: essentially ensuring no cases in a population of 1.4 billion by strict mass testing and isolation of infections or close contacts. On Friday, the Communist Party Politburo – a council of 25 leaders including Xi – renewed its commitment to that goal, noting the growing economic risks from Covid and the war in Ukraine.
Outbreaks in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities are testing Xi’s skills and authority ahead of a crucial Communist Party congress later this year. While his third term as party general secretary is almost certain to win, Xi also wants to ensure that the leadership dominates the officials who will defend him and implement his agenda.
To secure that outcome, Xi seeks to demonstrate calm political mastery, and until recently, the zero-Covid strategy has been a signature achievement: an effective, if costly, and generally popular pledge that China will fight against mass disease. and will be saved from death.
After Communist Party officials downplayed the virus in early 2020, Xi turned China into an epidemiological fortress, slashing infections and protecting the economy, while giving the United States nearly 1 million COVID-19 cases. faced death.
Now there is no easy way out of that fort. Xi’s leadership has been so invested in showing that China can handle its pandemic needs that the government has stopped introducing mRNA vaccines developed abroad, which are usually more effective than China’s domestic vaccines. Huh. Vaccination of the elderly has also lagged behind in China.
Without the necessary defenses, the country could face rising cases, even with Omicron’s low virulence, with officials warning that hospitals could be overwhelmed. But China’s goal of eliminating nearly all cases runs the risk of turning into a costly, controversial task with no end in sight if the Omicron outbreak continues to prompt measures to freeze entire cities.
“This policy was a demonstration that the government puts the health and well-being of the Chinese people first,” said Professor Patricia Thornton of the University of Oxford, who studies Chinese politics and society. “It is becoming a very difficult story for Xi Jinping to tell.”
The shutdown and demands for continued investigation and vigilance, especially in Shanghai, have ignited public dismay, exhausted local officials and medical staff, and eroded economic momentum.
While residents have complained about harsh restrictions under China’s previous lockdowns, this time there are more critics and courageous ones, including economists and business executives, arguing that “zero Covid” has become untenable in the face of the new version.
“Covid is not the only disease that threatens the public’s life,” Liang Jianzhang, co-founder of Trip.com Group, a large travel corporation in China, wrote in a recent article in Chinese Enterprise News. “Sacrificing everything in pursuit of extreme ‘shock’ measures is not the sweeping victory we really need.”
The unexpected turmoil of 2022, including China’s torturous position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is still very unlikely to deprive Xi of a third term. He is China’s most powerful leader in decades, and the anger in Shanghai shows no signs of escalating into any challenge to his rule. There continues to be acceptance, if not enthusiasm, for tighter controls in other cities and towns.
“We were initially doing nucleic acid tests every day, so I don’t think life has changed in Beijing in recent times,” said Zhou Yunhong, a pork butcher at Beijing Fresh Food Market. Tests were being held since January.
“I’m not worried about Beijing’s outbreak,” said Lee Kun, an egg seller at the same market. “This is the capital. How can they leave the common people here hungry?”
But economic damage and social tensions from prolonged shutdowns could soften Xi’s power, so far behind his choice for the next leadership lineup, said Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in California who studies Chinese politics. to support the elite. Whatever happens, Xi is likely to remain in chief, but the dominance could rise or fall from a pay hike, and the officials around him matter.
“The difference right now with respect to the zero-Covid approach is that the costs are now visible,” Pei said. “You can’t shine a light on them.”
Even before the Shanghai crisis, Xi seemed troubled. Officials have recently suggested that criticizing COVID policy is disloyal to Xi or that sealing cases is “a political duty that takes precedence over everything else.”
Xi told officials at the party school in early March, “Countless facts tell us that we can win respect and initiative only if we defeat our enemies face to face on a narrow path, have the courage to fight, in the struggle.” Show a sense of mastery.” ,
Last week, Xi promised to boost China’s growth with an influx of infrastructure spending, and on Friday the Politburo said the government would stabilize the economy while eliminating Covid cases.
“Stay with the dynamic zero, protect people’s lives and health to the maximum extent, while minimizing the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development,” read the summary of the meeting of the Xinhua News Agency’s politburo.
But an increasingly vocal group of Chinese economists and business leaders argue that the damage from the shutdown will be hard to recover. Chronic uncertainty over when it is possible to travel, spend, buy property or invest in a business has damaged consumer and company confidence.
The solution, he argues, is to accelerate the rollout of more vaccines and treatments, and to ensure that older people and other vulnerable groups are vaccinated – allowing for greater flexibility when infections spread.
“The dynamic zero policy we are implementing is increasingly expensive and increasingly ineffective,” Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings, said in a widely shared speech on Chinese social media last month.
“When more and more people understand that the economic costs are too high and unsustainable, change will come more easily,” Lu said in a telephone interview.
Zero Covid easing could be politically tougher than some critics have predicted.
Xi’s death toll from China’s relatively low — about 5,000, mostly in the early months of the pandemic — is a core to his argument that the Communist Party is more effective in government than any liberal democracy.
But barely more than half of Chinese people age 80 and older have had two vaccines, and less than 20% of people in that age group have received a booster, Zeng YixinA deputy minister of the National Health Commission said last month.
Depending on the mortality rate used for the calculations, deaths from a free-spread spread of omicrons in China could be between 100,000 and 840,000, said yanzhong huang, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Even small-scale deaths can spark public anger.
“They don’t want to live with the virus, but they have to live with their policies,” Huang said. “It’s a real dilemma.”
Xi thinks he can beat the transition in Shanghai and stop China from zero to Covid unless some easing is possible after the party congress. For now, officials are turning Xi into propaganda.
During a recent visit to Renmin University in Beijing, Chinese state television hooked up to hundreds of enthusiastic students. After the Guangxi region in southern China announced that Xi would be one of its representatives at the party congress, it issued reports that villagers there were being given Little Red Books of Xi’s thoughts—the “little red book” of Mao Zedong. an echo.
“Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, he will gather together even more princely power of this era,” read Xinhua State News Agency’s report from Guangxi on Xi’s selection. There was no mention of Kovid in this.
But there was an open gap in Xi’s busy April itinerary, highlighting the plight that covid is building into a politically significant year when it hopes to increase its grip on power. He has been behind the scenes when it comes to China’s biggest, most controversial lockdown since the pandemic began.
During April, Xi made no public speech focused on the outbreak as his largest city in China, Shanghai, shut down to try to contain the infection and then went on alert after cases erupted in Beijing. Nor did Xi directly address Shanghai’s 25 million residents, who have been ordered to stay home for weeks, despite complaints of scarce food, overwhelmed hospitals and confusing zigzags in mass quarantine rules.
“He deliberately wants to keep a certain distance”, said Deng Yuwen, a former editor of the Communist Party newspaper who lives in the United States, from Shanghai. “No doubt, he’s doing a lot about fighting the pandemic behind the scenes, but of course he doesn’t want to get directly into the mess in Shanghai.”
Instead Xi’s orders are passed on to subordinates or through meeting summaries. He has cited their demand to stick to a “dynamic zero-Covid” goal: essentially ensuring no cases in a population of 1.4 billion by strict mass testing and isolation of infections or close contacts. On Friday, the Communist Party Politburo – a council of 25 leaders including Xi – renewed its commitment to that goal, noting the growing economic risks from Covid and the war in Ukraine.
Outbreaks in Shanghai, Beijing and other cities are testing Xi’s skills and authority ahead of a crucial Communist Party congress later this year. While his third term as party general secretary is almost certain to win, Xi also wants to ensure that the leadership dominates the officials who will defend him and implement his agenda.
To secure that outcome, Xi seeks to demonstrate calm political mastery, and until recently, the zero-Covid strategy has been a signature achievement: an effective, if costly, and generally popular pledge that China will fight against mass disease. and will be saved from death.
After Communist Party officials downplayed the virus in early 2020, Xi turned China into an epidemiological fortress, slashing infections and protecting the economy, while giving the United States nearly 1 million COVID-19 cases. faced death.
Now there is no easy way out of that fort. Xi’s leadership has been so invested in showing that China can handle its pandemic needs that the government has stopped introducing mRNA vaccines developed abroad, which are usually more effective than China’s domestic vaccines. Huh. Vaccination of the elderly has also lagged behind in China.
Without the necessary defenses, the country could face rising cases, even with Omicron’s low virulence, with officials warning that hospitals could be overwhelmed. But China’s goal of eliminating nearly all cases runs the risk of turning into a costly, controversial task with no end in sight if the Omicron outbreak continues to prompt measures to freeze entire cities.
“This policy was a demonstration that the government puts the health and well-being of the Chinese people first,” said Professor Patricia Thornton of the University of Oxford, who studies Chinese politics and society. “It is becoming a very difficult story for Xi Jinping to tell.”
The shutdown and demands for continued investigation and vigilance, especially in Shanghai, have ignited public dismay, exhausted local officials and medical staff, and eroded economic momentum.
While residents have complained about harsh restrictions under China’s previous lockdowns, this time there are more critics and courageous ones, including economists and business executives, arguing that “zero Covid” has become untenable in the face of the new version.
“Covid is not the only disease that threatens the public’s life,” Liang Jianzhang, co-founder of Trip.com Group, a large travel corporation in China, wrote in a recent article in Chinese Enterprise News. “Sacrificing everything in pursuit of extreme ‘shock’ measures is not the sweeping victory we really need.”
The unexpected turmoil of 2022, including China’s torturous position on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is still very unlikely to deprive Xi of a third term. He is China’s most powerful leader in decades, and the anger in Shanghai shows no signs of escalating into any challenge to his rule. There continues to be acceptance, if not enthusiasm, for tighter controls in other cities and towns.
“We were initially doing nucleic acid tests every day, so I don’t think life has changed in Beijing in recent times,” said Zhou Yunhong, a pork butcher at Beijing Fresh Food Market. Tests were being held since January.
“I’m not worried about Beijing’s outbreak,” said Lee Kun, an egg seller at the same market. “This is the capital. How can they leave the common people here hungry?”
But economic damage and social tensions from prolonged shutdowns could soften Xi’s power, so far behind his choice for the next leadership lineup, said Minxin Pei, a professor at Claremont McKenna College in California who studies Chinese politics. to support the elite. Whatever happens, Xi is likely to remain in chief, but the dominance could rise or fall from a pay hike, and the officials around him matter.
“The difference right now with respect to the zero-Covid approach is that the costs are now visible,” Pei said. “You can’t shine a light on them.”
Even before the Shanghai crisis, Xi seemed troubled. Officials have recently suggested that criticizing COVID policy is disloyal to Xi or that sealing cases is “a political duty that takes precedence over everything else.”
Xi told officials at the party school in early March, “Countless facts tell us that we can win respect and initiative only if we defeat our enemies face to face on a narrow path, have the courage to fight, in the struggle.” Show a sense of mastery.” ,
Last week, Xi promised to boost China’s growth with an influx of infrastructure spending, and on Friday the Politburo said the government would stabilize the economy while eliminating Covid cases.
“Stay with the dynamic zero, protect people’s lives and health to the maximum extent, while minimizing the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development,” read the summary of the meeting of the Xinhua News Agency’s politburo.
But an increasingly vocal group of Chinese economists and business leaders argue that the damage from the shutdown will be hard to recover. Chronic uncertainty over when it is possible to travel, spend, buy property or invest in a business has damaged consumer and company confidence.
The solution, he argues, is to accelerate the rollout of more vaccines and treatments, and to ensure that older people and other vulnerable groups are vaccinated – allowing for greater flexibility when infections spread.
“The dynamic zero policy we are implementing is increasingly expensive and increasingly ineffective,” Lu Ting, chief China economist at Nomura Holdings, said in a widely shared speech on Chinese social media last month.
“When more and more people understand that the economic costs are too high and unsustainable, change will come more easily,” Lu said in a telephone interview.
Zero Covid easing could be politically tougher than some critics have predicted.
Xi’s death toll from China’s relatively low — about 5,000, mostly in the early months of the pandemic — is a core to his argument that the Communist Party is more effective in government than any liberal democracy.
But barely more than half of Chinese people age 80 and older have had two vaccines, and less than 20% of people in that age group have received a booster, Zeng YixinA deputy minister of the National Health Commission said last month.
Depending on the mortality rate used for the calculations, deaths from a free-spread spread of omicrons in China could be between 100,000 and 840,000, said yanzhong huang, a Senior Fellow for Global Health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Even small-scale deaths can spark public anger.
“They don’t want to live with the virus, but they have to live with their policies,” Huang said. “It’s a real dilemma.”
Xi thinks he can beat the transition in Shanghai and stop China from zero to Covid unless some easing is possible after the party congress. For now, officials are turning Xi into propaganda.
During a recent visit to Renmin University in Beijing, Chinese state television hooked up to hundreds of enthusiastic students. After the Guangxi region in southern China announced that Xi would be one of its representatives at the party congress, it issued reports that villagers there were being given Little Red Books of Xi’s thoughts—the “little red book” of Mao Zedong. an echo.
“Under Xi Jinping’s leadership, he will gather together even more princely power of this era,” read Xinhua State News Agency’s report from Guangxi on Xi’s selection. There was no mention of Kovid in this.