As an unprecedented coronavirus outbreak swept through China in December, President Xi Jinping remained silent on the health crisis in the world’s most populous country.
But during his annual pre-recorded New Year’s speech broadcast by state television on Saturday, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong finally called for unity as he defended his handling of the pandemic.
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, we have always put people and life first, adhere to scientific and precise prevention and control, optimize and adjust prevention and control measures according to time and situation, and maximize the protection of people’s lives and health.,” he said.
Xi added: “After arduous efforts, we have overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges . . . While we are still struggling, everyone is working diligently, and the morning is ahead. Let’s work hard, perseverance means victory, and unity means unity win.”
China’s ruling Communist Party’s efforts to downplay and defuse the escalating health crisis that followed Xi’s decision to lift almost all Covid-19 restrictions reflects the damage he has done to his credibility at home and abroad, just as he begins his third term, experts say. said.
“We can clearly see that Xi Jinping is seriously wounded because his prestige and power have suffered,” said Willy Lam, an expert on Chinese politics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “The claim that China’s system is the best in the world should now be seriously questioned.”
Before Saturday’s speech, Xi did not directly address the impact of the pandemic over the past three weeks even as infections hit new records and hospitals and crematoria across the country were overwhelmed with the sick, dying and dying.
However, as hundreds of millions of people come down with Covid-19, China’s military is staging a naval war game with Russia, launching its third-largest air strike around Taiwan and flying fighter jets within meters of US military aircraft in South China. sea. On Friday evening, Xi held a virtual meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin and reaffirmed his support 10 months after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
China on Friday reported just one coronavirus death for the previous day, even as forecasts indicated this winter wave would kill millions.
The party has been left with the awkward task of releasing obituaries for top cadres who have passed away that they cannot ignore. State propagandists have parroted banal party-speak, projecting bluster and giving little in the way of explanation to the suffering citizens.
Lam said that for Xi, who had previously claimed victory over the pandemic, the long-term threat that was “mainly detrimental” was that the harm felt by “not only ordinary people, not only the lower classes, but also senior cadres, they are elderly and retired senior cadres “.
Despite heavy controls on public dissent, Chinese censors have struggled to staunch the flood of complaints on social media. Most focused on the lack of warning or preparation for China’s resource-intensive health system before reopening.
“If [China] open at the end of the year, then why are so many cities closed for three months this year?” said one social media user. “Why choose to open in winter when the virus is most active and people’s immune systems are weakest?”
John Delury, a China expert at Yonsei University in Seoul, said “at the very least”, party leaders face a “narrative problem” about “how to explain to the public what is happening”.
“Some serious damage is being done to public trust,” he said. “We may not see the immediate effect of that. But it will be a general calculus of how the government is doing.
“This is the worst start to Xi’s third term,” he said. “There’s no question that it’s going to go back to its height.”
Last month’s sudden pivot from relentless lockdowns and mass testing followed the growth of the world’s second-largest economy, as well as rising public frustration with officials’ draconian enforcement of the zero-Covid strategy that culminated in public protests in cities across the country. at the end of November.
Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center, a US think-tank, stressed that the political legacy of China’s zero-Covid policies – including establishment, longevity and easing – will undermine confidence in Xi’s decision-making.
“The most disputed question is the best time to open and the preparations the government should make,” he said. “The bottom line is not whether Xi lost credibility because he changed the zero-Covid policy. Rather, it is: if changing the policy is inevitable, [why] Didn’t they do a better job of preparing for the consequences?”
Diana Fu, an expert on China’s domestic politics with the Brookings Institution think-tank, said Xi’s U-turn may have come too late to save his reputation in the eyes of a critical citizenry.
“On the one hand, the reversal of this policy may be proof that China’s political system under Xi is still adaptive and responsive to the cries of its citizens. On the other hand, it also confirms the extraordinary level of discretionary power exercised by the top leadership,” he said. “The lives of 1.4bn citizens depend on what Xi and his advisers decide about when to shut down and when to open the country.”
As the chaotic scenes unfolding in China dominate global news broadcasts, the image of competent virus management cultivated by the Xi government is taking a heavy blow on the international stage.
Countries including the US, Italy and Japan are imposing a negative Covid test requirement for air passengers from China amid a lack of reliable official data from Beijing and fears of new virus mutations.
Elizabeth Freund Larus, adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum, a US foreign policy research institute, said the move highlighted a “lack of trust” in Xi’s administration.
“US officials believe that the Chinese government does not yet know the origin of Covid-19 and is under-estimating the number of positive Covid cases in China,” he said.
“The Chinese government allowed millions of tourists to travel at home and abroad for the lunar new year in 2020 because they knew there was a new coronavirus infecting the population. When the death rate and infection became real… it was out of control in the US.
“Washington will never make the same mistake twice.”
Additional reporting by Xinning Liu and Ryan McMorrow in Beijing