The protests that erupted against China’s Covid Zero strategy represent one of the most significant challenges to Communist Party rule since the Tiananmen crisis more than 30 years ago. How Xi Jinping responds to it may end up being just as pivotal for the country’s future.
From the capital Beijing to the far western outpost of Kashgar, Chinese residents frustrated by lockdowns and mass-testing campaigns have taken to the streets in recent days to urge change. In Shanghai -- stricken by a grueling two-month Covid clampdown earlier this year -- one crowd called for Xi to step down, defying the risk of a long prison term. Demonstrations ranged from a few people to street rallies of hundreds.
Easing the outcry presents Xi with perhaps his biggest policy dilemma after a decade in power. A rapid exit from Covid Zero could fuel a surge in deaths, undercutting Xi’s efforts to cast China’s pandemic response as superior to that of the West. Cracking down on the protests, on the other hand, could build public sympathy for a cause that has already demonstrated nationwide support.
There are few others for Xi to blame after a seemingly triumphant party congress last month, in which he secured a precedent-breaking third term in power and stacked the nation’s leadership with proven loyalists. Xi not only used the event to validate his Covid Zero approach, he appointed the man who oversaw the Shanghai lockdown, former top aide Li Qiang, to the party’s top No. 2 position.
“Whatever happens, it is going to take the shine off the start of Xi’s third term,” said Charles Parton, a former British diplomat based in China and a fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and the Royal United Services Institute. “If he holds firm and uses force, and if it does not work too well, he looks fallible and destroys trust in himself and the party. That will build as the economy continues to suffer.”
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