XI ‘BELIEVES PROTESTERS ARE MAINLY STUDENTS’
EU officials also say the president told European Council chief that less lethal Omicron is mostly dominant now, hinting at further easing of curbs
President Xi Jinping told European Council President Charles Michel that people protesting against the country’s strict Covid-19 measures were “mainly students” who were “frustrated” after three years of the pandemic, according to senior EU officials.
They said he made the comments during a three-hour meeting in Beijing on Thursday.
Beijing has not publicly acknowledged the protests in several cities last weekend, which in some cases included calls for Xi himself to step down, and coverage has been heavily censored.
His reported comments are the first known expression of his views on the unrest.
EU officials in the room took Xi’s broader remarks about pandemic controls as a signal that he was ready to further loosen tight restrictions, which have left tens of millions under lockdown.
Michel “pleaded for use of vaccines and then raised the question of China’s measures and government measures”, a senior official said.
“And the response we got from the president was explaining why there was protests, claiming that after three years of Covid he had an issue because people were frustrated. It was mainly students, or teenagers in university.”
Xi told Michel that the dominant strain of Covid-19 in China was “now mainly Omicron, and Delta before that was much more lethal”, according to the senior official. Xi’s remarks were taken to suggest that the government would loosen some controls.
A second senior source said the Chinese leadership had intimated that it would try to push vaccinations in response to the unrest, with Michel sharing with Xi and his most senior underlings the European experience of rolling out mass vaccinations.
Xi told Michel that China had “high rates of vaccination, except for elderly people, which is a challenge”, they said.
“My sense was that this [exchange] was something that was informative. I had a feeling that China would on its side be increasingly looking to incentivise its citizens to be vaccinated, to follow a tiny bit the European experience,” the second official said.
On the mainland, only 68.7 per cent of people over 60 have had three doses of a Covid-19 vaccine, official figures show. For those aged 80 and over, only 40.4 per cent have had had a booster dose.
Michel became the first Western leader to visit China since the beginning of protests, which have been described as the most significant displays of public unrest in the country since the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989.
He also became the first EU institutional leader to visit the country since the bloc’s former foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini met Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing in 2019.
Several mainland cities this week rolled back PCR testing, a cornerstone of the zero-Covid response, and called for the use of rapid antigen tests in a sign that virus control rules are being further relaxed in the country.
Beijing city authorities have asked hospitals not to turn patients away if they cannot produce a negative PCR test taken within the previous 48 hours. Instead, they can take a quick antigen test.
Children under three years old are exempt from PCR tests, with their carers’ results checked instead, but inpatients and their caretakers must still present their results.
The new measures were announced on Thursday after the capital stopped demanding frequent PCR testing for those who do not have regular social interactions – such as the elderly, children and people who stay at home for work and school – to ensure no one is denied healthcare access.
China has yet to license the use of Western vaccines for the general public, but during a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz last month, Xi signalled that foreigners living in the country would be approved to take the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine.
BioNTech filed for a Chinese licence for its mRNA vaccines last year, but it has yet to be granted.
I had a feeling that China would on its side be increasingly looking to incentivise its citizens to be vaccinated
A SENIOR E.U. OFFICIAL