As an unprecedented coronavirus outbreak swept through China in December, President Xi Jinping remained largely silent on the health crisis in the world’s most populous country.
But during an annually taped New Year’s Eve speech broadcast by state television on Saturday, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong finally called for unity while defending his handling of the pandemic.
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, we have always put people and life first, adhered to scientific and precise prevention and control, optimized and adjusted prevention and control measures according to the times and situations, and protecting people’s life and health.” people maximized,” he said.
Xi added, “After arduous efforts, we have overcome unprecedented difficulties and challenges. . . While it is still a struggle, everyone is working hard and persistently, and the dawn is at hand. Let’s work harder, perseverance is victory and unity is victory.”
Attempts by the ruling Chinese Communist Party to downplay and distract attention from the deepening health crisis that followed Xi’s decision to lift almost all Covid restrictions reflect the damage done to his credibility at home and abroad just as he is beginning a third term, experts said.
“We can see very clearly that Xi Jinping is badly wounded in the sense that his reputation and authority has suffered tremendously,” said Willy Lam, a Chinese politics expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “His claim that the Chinese system is the best in the world is now being seriously questioned.”
Prior to Saturday’s speech, Xi had not directly addressed the impact of the pandemic over the past three weeks, even as infections hit new records and hospitals and crematoria across the country were overflowing with the sick, dying and dead.
As hundreds of millions fell ill with Covid-19, China’s military instead engaged in naval war games with Russia, launched its third largest air force attack around Taiwan and flew a fighter jet just meters from a US military plane in southern China’s sea. On Friday night, Xi held a virtual meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and reiterated his support 10 months after Moscow invaded Ukraine.
China on Friday reported just one coronavirus death for the previous day, despite forecasts suggesting this winter’s wave would cause millions of deaths.
The party has the uncomfortable task of publishing obituaries for deceased top cadres too notable to ignore. State propagandists have parroted banal party language, projected noise and offered little explanation to the suffering citizens.
Lam said that for Xi, who had previously claimed victory over the pandemic, a “particularly adverse” long-term threat is that the harm “will come not just from ordinary people, not just from disadvantaged classes, but even from senior cadres, theirs.” Parents and retired senior cadres”.
Despite tight controls over public dissent, Chinese censors have struggled to stem the tide of complaints on social media. Most have focused on the lack of advance warning or preparation for China’s sparsely resourced health system ahead of reopening.
“If [China] Opens at the end of the year, so why are so many cities closed for three months this year?” said one social media user. “Why open up in winter when the virus is at its most active and people’s immune systems are at their weakest?”
John Delury, a China expert at Seoul’s Yonsei University, said the party leadership faces “at least” one “narrative problem” “how to explain to its public what the heck is going on.”
“Public confidence is being seriously damaged,” he said. “We may not see the immediate impact of this. But it goes into the public calculus of how competent their government is.”
“This is the worst possible start to Xi’s third term,” he added. “There is no question that this is due to his stature.”
Last month’s sudden reversal of relentless lockdowns and mass testing followed slowing growth in the world’s second-largest economy, as well as rising public frustration at officials’ draconian enforcement of the zero-Covid strategy, caught in rare public protests in cities across the country across the country culminated in late November.
Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center, a US think tank, argued that the political legacy of China’s zero-Covid policy – including its establishment, longevity and relaxation – would undermine trust in Xi’s decision-making.
“The most contentious issue is the best timing for opening and the preparation that the government should have done,” she said. “The crux of the matter is not whether Xi lost credibility because he changed the zero-Covid policy. Instead, if a policy change was inevitable, [why] Didn’t he prepare better for the consequences?”
Diana Fu, an expert on China’s domestic politics at the Brookings Institution think tank, said Xi’s about-face may have come too late to salvage his reputation in the eyes of critical citizens.
On the one hand, this about-face could be evidence that the Chinese political system under Xi is still adaptable and responsive to the cries of its citizens. On the other hand, it also underscores the phenomenal degree of discretion exercised by the most senior executive,” she said. “The lives of 1.4 billion citizens depend on what Xi and his clique of advisors decide about when to close the country and when to open it.”
As the chaotic scenes unfolding in China dominated global newscasts, the Xi government’s image of competent virus management suffered a severe blow on the international stage.
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Countries including the US, Italy and Japan have imposed negative Covid testing requirements on passengers from China amid a lack of reliable official data from Beijing and growing fears of new mutations in the virus.
Elizabeth Freund Larus, an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum, a US foreign policy research institute, said the measures underscored a “lack of trust” in the Xi government.
“US officials believe the Chinese government has been less than willing about the origins of Covid-19 and far from truthful about the number of positive Covid cases in China,” she said.
“The Chinese government has allowed millions of tourists to travel domestically and internationally for Lunar New Year 2020, knowing that the population has been infected by a new coronavirus. When the mortality and infection rates became apparent. . . In the US it was already out of control.
“Washington will not make the same mistake twice.”
Additional reporting by Xinning Liu and Ryan McMorrow in Beijing