After years of bricking the government at all costs, all dams against Covid-19 have now broken in China. The pandemic is sweeping the country, leaving a trail of devastation in its wake. Xi Jinping doesn’t care much, in this respect too he resembles his role model Mao.
Liao Xiaofeng is caring for her elderly mother Chen Lifen, who has contracted Covid-19 and now needs oxygen at home.
Many observers have hailed the abrupt end to China’s zero-Covid policy as a sign that the country’s leadership is ready to listen to the wishes of the country’s people. You are wrong. In reality, replacing the zero-Covid policy with a laissez-faire health policy is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s revenge on his people for daring to openly challenge his policies. The worst offense for Xi, however, was that the protesters also questioned him personally, the de facto emperor of China.
It must have particularly angered Xi Jinping that the whole world witnessed this resistance. TV screens showed angry crowds in many cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai and Wuhan, calling for an end to the zero-Covid policy. In Shanghai, people shouted, “Down with the Communist Party! Down with Xi Jinping!” – a truly revolutionary demand for today’s China.
Biblical extent
In retaliation, the zero-Covid policy has now been replaced with a zero-responsibility policy. The obligation to wear protective masks, to carry out regular testing and to quarantine in the event of infection has been lifted. Since the natural immunity of the population is low due to the zero-Covid policy in force so far, and because the vaccination rate is low, especially among the elderly, and not least because no mRNA vaccines are available from the West because of Xi’s patriotic pride A massive wave of corona infections is now sweeping through the country.
China’s current dynasty is the Communist Party. It would be well advised to withdraw the “mandate of heaven” from Emperor Xi.
According to confidential data from the authorities, which has become public – which incidentally indicates passive resistance in the apparatus against the new policy – 250 million Chinese are already infected. The hospitals are hopelessly overwhelmed, medicines are sold out, and there are endless queues in front of the cemeteries of those who want to have their relatives who died of Covid-19 cremated. According to Western estimates, a million deaths must be expected. The actual number could also be significantly higher.
Beyond punishing his own people on truly biblical proportions, the new policy offers several benefits for Xi. China’s opening up will revitalize the economy, making a thing of the past for the very low growth rates of the zero Covid period that challenge Xi’s prestige and authority. Furthermore, the opening will also lead to a rapid natural immunization of broad sections of the population.
The price for this will be paid by the elderly and people with health impairments and their relatives. This will not bother Xi Jinping any further. He has already shown by banning effective Western mRNA vaccines and replacing them with extreme quarantine measures that he doesn’t care about the well-being of ordinary people.
A new dynasty
All this amounts to a scandalous disregard for the ruler’s responsibility for his subjects. In imperial China, it was said that emperors who failed to rule in an orderly and responsible manner faced the revocation of “Tianming,” the heavenly mandate to exercise power. “Tianming” was repeatedly used to legitimize the frequent changes of dynasties in imperial China.
This happened for the first time around 1050 BC, when the allegedly malicious Emperor Zhou Xin from the Shang Dynasty lost the battle of Muye against a militarily much weaker opponent and power passed to the Zhou Dynasty, which subsequently lasted almost 800 years long existed.
China’s current dynasty is the Communist Party. They would be well advised to withdraw the “Tianming” from Emperor Xi. Otherwise it will run the risk of being replaced by a new dynasty itself. The name of this new dynasty will be “Minzhu”. In German: democracy.
Amos Michael Friedlander is an economist. In the 1990s he was Head of Eastern Europe Research at Nomura International. Since then he has been an entrepreneur.