Xi faces a reckoning

The persistence of the COVID epidemic in China remains a mystery to many people, including me. The latest news seems to be that the medical system in China is being overwhelmed by a surge of COVID patients. There is now news that an even bigger wave may be coming. While the Chinese government only admits to a few hundred or thousands of deaths due to the pandemic, there are estimates that the deaths may reach anywhere from one million to one million and a half.

For those who have not kept up with the news, the Xi Jinping government adopted a zero-COVID policy in tackling the pandemic. No other country has publicly admitted to such a seemingly impossible goal. Even those epidemics in the past like flu and pneumonia that have been successfully tackled have not reached a zero epidemic goal. Xi Jinping seems to have believed that the authoritarian method of complete lockdowns would achieve this zero-COVID target.

At the beginning, the people of China seem to have accepted this draconian method. For example, the 25 million inhabitants of Shanghai tolerated the program of several months of severe lockdowns throughout the metropolis. However, towards the beginning of last year, it was beginning to be obvious that after two years, the national lockdown program was not achieving its zero-COVID goal. The result was that a broad cross section of the Chinese public began to grow sick of controls that no longer seemed to be working. The economy was also becoming dangerously disrupted as the virulence of the Omicron variant began spreading.

Protests began as simple complaints from the people, which were in itself unusual for a society that was heavily controlled. These protests swiftly became transformed into street demonstrations to the extent that there were calls for the resignation of Xi Jinping. These protests became more widespread when it became apparent that the authoritarian method was not working and the government was viewed as losing control over the COVID pandemic.

The Communist Party has tried to present its total lockdown program as the model for the success of authoritarianism as the ideal for solving any crisis. Perhaps that is why it took so long for them to revise their anti-COVID program since it would be an admission that the Western approach of working with the consent of the public was more successful than the harsh method that Xi Jinping imposed on his nation.

It was because of the public information policy of the Communist Party and the total restriction of the freedom of the press that the failure of the total lockdown was concealed for so long.

Xi and his Communist Party have tried to model themselves on the old formula of Mao Zedong of trying to control all aspects of the economic and social lives in China. In fact, it has even tried to exert control even in the personal lives of the Chinese people.

Most of the present generation of the Chinese people in the mainland and overseas have known life in a China that has grown prosperous, stronger and even as a superpower. The Communist Party has been tireless in harnessing this pride in their country.

It should be remembered that Mao used to dismiss what he called minor concerns and instead, focused on giving the masses a motherland that would be able to resist American and western “imperialists.”

Xi has equated the sacrifices of the authoritarian path to a zero-COVID nation in return for what he calls the “long-term interest of the people.” For example, in his year-end televised address, he talked of the “tough challenges” that had to be endured in the new phase of COVID management. In the same address, he talked of glories of living in a rising China and then started praising the early Communist Party revolutionaries for enduring hardships before their final victory. He again used one of his favorite phrases: “Just as polishing makes jade finer, adversity makes one stronger.”

It is this philosophy of Xi Jinping’s belief that China’s rise is more important than individual suffering in other parts of the world.

In a commentary in The Economist entitled “Avoiding a Zero-COVID Reckoning,” the writer wrote: “Mr. Xi’s insouciance about suffering in a great cause is chilling, for the same logic might be used to justify any autocrat’s cruelest whims. It is also a bet that China’s national rise, his core claim to legitimacy, will continue.” This philosophy may yet be applied to justify an invasion of Taiwan or the continued territorial expansion along the boundaries of China.

The public pressure and demonstrations have forced Xi Jinping to soften his zero-COVID policy but if the COVID surge continues, the government will have to try and explain the reason for the failure of its anti-COVID program.

Xi Jinping may yet be confronted with the terrible choice of even increasing authoritarianism or going back to the more liberal policies of Deng Xiaoping.