IIt will have been enough for China to abandon its zero Covid policy and for the virus to spread at full speed in the country for some Westerners to predict the fall of Xi Jinping, or even of the Chinese Communist Party. “China is on the cusp of a great tragedy. It could break the implicit contract between the Communist Party and the Chinese: you run the country, but you take care of us, the people.writes the diplomat Jean-Marie Guéhenno, on Twitterend of December 2022. “Xi Jinping is on a precarious reprieve, because the minute Chinese anger becomes so great that the regime could be shaken, the party will sacrifice its number one without a second’s hesitation and to the delight of all those that he had removed from the management “even predicts MEP Bernard Guetta (Renew Europe) on his website.
Certainly, the images of overwhelmed hospitals and queues in front of crematoriums operating twenty-four hours a day have gone around the world. But, make no mistake about it, at the same time, China is picking up again. Stations, airports, hotels and restaurants are facing a crowd they had not seen since 2019. Reservations in restaurants for January 21, the eve of the Lunar New Year, opening the year of the Rabbit, would reach 90% of the level of 2019. You only have to walk in any tourist place to see that, after three years of zero Covid policy, the Chinese are delighted to be able to travel again and go out with friends, or find their families which some had not been able to visit during all these years of pandemic. Of course, they understood that the number of deaths due to Covid-19 was infinitely higher than recognized by the authorities, even if the latter revised the figures upwards on Saturday January 14, but they also know that the virus has is wreaking havoc in the rest of the world, especially in the United States.
If the popularity of Xi Jinping – always difficult to assess – will undoubtedly suffer from this influx of deaths, deducing that his legitimacy is questioned by the Chinese is more a matter of wishful thinking – an opinion determined by what one wishes – only analysis. Many Chinese are certainly wondering if these three years of zero Covid policy were really necessary, but they continue to think that their country has managed this epidemic better, or at least less badly, than the United States, the only country with which they compare.
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