Chinese state media on Monday celebrated dictator Xi Jinping’s allegedly brilliant “insights” for guiding China through the coronavirus crisis – but Xi has been conspicuously invisible during the massive coronavirus wave sweeping across China for the past few months, just as he disappeared during the initial outbreak in early 2020.
China’s Xinhua news service on Monday fancifully boasted that “foreign experts and observers have spoken highly” of Xi’s “insights regarding the endeavors of the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people in the new era.”
The foreign praise in question hilariously included an Egyptian academic praising Xi for doing a fabulous job of running the Beijing Winter Olympics, which was an absolute disaster.
Xinhua was flush with praise for Xi’s dazzling leadership of “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” which is supposedly such a remarkable system that the entire world is lining up to follow Beijing’s example.
In truth, the entire world is watching the Chinese Communist Party drown in a sea of coronavirus cases – the disease it supposedly obliterated over a year ago. A potential catastrophe for global supply lines is looming as major Chinese industrial, economic, and shipping hubs are plunged into draconian lockdowns.
The South China Morning Post (SCMP) noted last month that Xi’s response to the serious coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong was notably muted. The Chinese dictator did not hesitate to use heavy-handed techniques to break the Hong Kong pro-democracy uprising of 2019, but he took a remarkably light touch with the omicron variant, keeping his immense propaganda machine puttering along in idle while leaving Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam to handle the outbreak as she saw fit.
Hong Kong-based analysts told the SCMP that Xi was worried about growing anger among Chinese people toward Hong Kong, which they blamed for doing a poor job of controlling omicron and allowing it to begin infecting China.
Xi might not have wanted his fingerprints anywhere near the Hong Kong outbreak because it called China’s vaunted ability to control the coronavirus with “dynamic zero-Covid” techniques into question. Outside observers might start wondering why the one Chinese city that is not under absolute domination by the Chinese Communist Party is the only one that reported coronavirus infection and fatality figures similar to the rest of the world.
Also, Hong Kong’s status as Communist China’s business lobby was already in jeopardy after the ham-fisted crackdown on democracy, and business and political leaders on the island feared harsh lockdowns could further damage its profitable relationship with the outside world.
Whatever happens to Hong Kong, lockdowns in vital Chinese cities like Shenzhen and Shanghai are threatening to wallop Chinese economic recovery, and Xi’s alliance with fellow dictator and global pariah Vladimir Putin of Russia could end up becoming a blank check Xi regrets writing.
Xi might particularly come to regret signing long-term contracts for Russian oil and coal. Beijing is reportedly beginning to look for substitute coal from Indonesia, a measure that will vindicate Communist Party adversaries who criticized Xi for making China too dependent upon Russia.
Xi rewrote Chinese law to install himself as dictator-for-life, but in theory, he must be reconfirmed for another term by the Chinese Communist Party later this year, and while few observers believe he has a serious chance of losing that vote, it might turn into something less than the joyous coronation he wanted.