Xi Jinping’s Zero Policy Backfires

On December 8, French media pointed that dissatisfaction against Xi Jinping’s Zero-Covid policy has resonated like never before among the diverse groups of employees, migrant workers, traders, young people, and urban elites. Xi Jinping is in a dilemma because there is no exit from this crisis he himself has brewed. Reports claimed that Xi may further intensify his social control and repression in order to buy time to make anti-epidemic control the new norm, using the approach he did to the Uighurs in Xinjiang as a model. The Zero-Covid strategy has thus become a symbol of Xi’s effort to prioritize ideology over the economy and society. Initially, Xi attempted to use his Zero-Covid policy to demonstrate his legitimacy and show Chinese political mode is superior to that of the West, now resulting in backfire.

The author argues that to revert to the Mao-era model of absolute dictatorship, Xi Jinping must confront anew the historical catastrophe that this model provoked. The Zero-Covid campaign will share the same failure as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution campaigns.

Other reports indicate that China’s economy is facing serious difficulties, but that the CCP has not been able to prove its ability to cope with them. Xi Jinping’s regime sees no possibility to conduct political reform, but so far centralization and Marxism have rarely been the catalysts for economic success.