In the sign of the rabbit
Xi Jinping takes full risk with Corona
By Salome Foltin
01/16/2023 4:29 p.m
After years of zero-Covid propaganda, the Chinese government suddenly made a U-turn in December. Since then, the highly infectious omicron variant has been filling hospitals and crematoria. The wave of travel for the Chinese New Year threatens to aggravate the situation significantly. Is Xi Jinping’s claim to power about to be put to the test?
In the early hours of November 27, 2022, something incredible happened in Shanghai. Angry crowds on Ürümqi Street chanted non-stop slogans such as “Communist Party, resign!”, “Xi Jinping, resign!”, “Give us freedom or give us death!” and above all “Freedom of Speech! Freedom of the Press!”.
The blank sheet of paper, stretched out to the oppressors in desperate protest against their own powerlessness, triumphed over state censorship for a brief moment. Already the next evening, a large number of armed security forces and barricades prevented people in Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu, Wuhan and Hangzhou from gathering again in the squares of the previous days. The demonstrations for an end to the tough corona measures seemed to have pulled the rug out from under their feet.
On December 7, the government in Beijing then announced drastic easing to an unprepared country. Lockdowns, forced quarantines, mass testing or contact tracing have since been suspended while an omicron wave rolls through China. Infected people who show mild or no symptoms have to go to work. Traveling is also allowed again.
It was only by coincidence that the face of the zero-Covid policy, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, was voted out of the Politburo at the 20th Chinese Communist Party Congress and barely two months later, an unprecedented about-face by the Chinese leadership marked the end of the rigid Covid -Restrictions sealed. But what does the 180-degree turn mean for China’s president, whose personal success has so far been closely linked to the zero-Covid policy? How can the narrative of Chinese superiority in the fight against the virus be sold to its own population in the future? Due to international pressure, the authorities recently had to correct the number of those whose deaths are related to Covid-19 upwards. Instead of reporting only 37 deaths, official Chinese figures now speak of almost 60,000 deaths since the easing in December.
Propaganda fails due to modern information procurement
At the beginning of January, the Washington Post and the broadcaster CNN used satellite images of crematoria and funeral homes to show that the effects of the current wave of corona infections are more deadly for China than the party leadership in Beijing has previously admitted. A comparison of photos documenting the volume of traffic before and after the easing in front of selected objects in Beijing, Kunming, Chengdu and other cities shows that the workload has increased significantly.
Chinese observers are also sharing videos on social networks of people waiting in long lines in front of crematoria with their dead. A video from Chongming Dao in northern Shanghai was only published on Twitter on January 12: Two women drive along the street in their car past almost 40 coffins. Under a cloudy sky, the bereaved all wear masks even outdoors. The video was retweeted by a Twitter account operating under the pseudonym Li Laoshi (“Teacher Li”) calls for the dissemination of anonymous, uncensored information through photos and videos. This account played an important role as a source of information during the Corona protests last year. Although the microblogging service Twitter has been banned in China since 2009, Chinese people access the platform via VPNs. Unlike on Weibo, the Chinese counterpart, content is not deleted within minutes but is retained. The party’s propaganda is reaching its limits in a modern, highly digitized country. This development is likely to have frightened the Chinese rulers at the end of November.
China’s preparation for the omicron wave
China’s chief epidemiologist Liang Wannian justified the timing of the easing in an interview with the Chinese broadcaster CCTV with only a weak pathogenicity of the mutated omicron strain. The epidemiologist compares the current vaccination situation with the corona wave in Hong Kong in early 2022. “The first thing I noticed in Hong Kong was that 94 percent of the deaths affected older people. I then analyzed the situation in detail and found that the vaccination rate in Hong Kong was over 86 percent at the time, but the vaccination rate among the elderly was less than 15 percent,” Liang said.
The “Year of the Rabbit” begins in China on January 22nd, and the wave of travel for the New Year threatens to exacerbate the situation significantly. Liang Wannian claimed that the vaccination rate among the elderly is now more than 80 percent across China, which is why the easing is a calculable risk. Western researchers see it differently, who expect a corona tsunami in view of the wave of travel for the New Year celebrations and the associated risk of infection for the aging, often unvaccinated rural population. Chinese vaccines Sinovac and Sinopharm show insufficient antibody response to omicron. Compared to the mRNA vaccines from Biontech and Moderna, the protection against fatal Covid 19 courses is less good. Nevertheless, Chinese pride prevents large-scale vaccination of the more effective vaccines to protect their own population. China’s healthcare system in the cities and even less in the countryside is equipped to deal with high levels of sick leave. Beds, doctors, medicines, ventilators – everything is missing.
The timing of the opening reveals the fear of social unrest
Against this background, one would like to ask Xi Jinping: Isn’t this madness? However, a rethinking of Chinese corona policy could not have been delayed much longer. In view of the Omicron variant, which could hardly be contained, China’s sluggish economy and the increasing protests among the people, the situation threatened to get out of hand for the party. Of course, this gives Xi Jinping the unique opportunity to shift responsibility for the foreseeable catastrophe to the November protesters.
From a very cynical point of view, the virus could also alleviate demographic pressure for Xi, because like many other societies, China’s is also threatened with aging. He could also be stylized into an end-time savior figure if, after calculated mass deaths, the redeeming concept of total corona surveillance is returned to. And after successful infection and the isolation policy becoming obsolete, a new phase of unbridled economic growth could begin.
But the virus is insidious. For the 2020 Chinese New Year celebrations, authorities in Wuhan approved a banquet for 40,000 families on Jan. 18. The first cases of the new disease had previously appeared in this city – but the authorities did not want to spoil the New Year’s festival. It was arguably the first superspreader event for Covid-19 before China released the virus into the world. Three years later, a New Year celebration can once again change the course of the world. Xi Jinping faces the acid test.