Why is the Chinese ambassador so reluctant to leave the embassy?

Chinese Ambassador Zheng Zeguang has been in the UK since June. But the poor fellow doesn’t seem to be getting out much. The embassy’s website records that he has held at least 60 events or meetings since arriving. Yet fewer than five appear to involve him actually leaving the embassy. The vast majority are virtual gatherings.

Schmoozing and soirées are the bread and butter of the diplomat’s world, especially for an ambitious official arriving in a new post just as a country is opening up post-pandemic. So why is Mr Zheng being such a recluse?

Perhaps it has something to do with attitudes to Covid. For better or worse, most of us in Britain are used to Covid by now. It’s a hassle, not a terror. But that’s not how the situation is viewed abroad, especially in Asia and most especially in China, where Western countries are portrayed as chaotic hotbeds of disease and misery.

Much of Asia is still wedded to a policy of zero Covid, with extreme results. Last week, for example, the most popular attraction at Shanghai Disneyland wasn’t the “Roaring Rapids” or even the Winnie the Pooh “Hunny Pot Spin”. It was the 34,000-person queue to get swabbed for Covid in order to leave.

Beijing shut down the whole park after one local, who might or might not have gone to Disneyland, tested positive for the Delta variant.

To be fair, the Chinese government has reason to fear a rise in Covid cases. Its vaccines don’t work well against variants or provide long-lasting immunity, but Beijing would sooner lock down millions of people than admit it has a problem and buy some Western boosters. So compared with Europe’s relative insouciance, policy and behaviour are still driven by fear.

This is not entirely helpful for supply chain issues, given the importance of China’s exports and ports for the world, and if it goes on for much longer will surely threaten its competitive position in the global trading system.

At any rate, in September, Parliament banned Mr Zheng from its estate in retaliation for Chinese sanctions on MPS. He was supposedly due to attend a reception hosted by pro-beijing MPS. What nobody considered was that perhaps the ambassador was happy to give the whole thing a miss.

In fact, the current arrangement suits everyone. He stays safely tucked behind his Zoom screen, and we are spared his glad-handing around Westminster.

MBeijing would sooner lock down millions of people than admit it has a problem and buy some Western boosters

eanwhile, back in Beijing, Xi Jinping is pushing ever further into the realm of communist self-canonisation. The sixth plenum, a gathering of 300 Communist Party bigwigs, has issued a “historical resolution”, a type of document that was only previously issued by Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, reaffirming Mr Xi’s central role in the party.

China-watchers such as Ling Li think Mr Xi could revive the old “chairman” title to cement his power, even as state media ramp up the praise-singing of the “people’s leader”. Covid has become Xi’s “wartime” victory in the absence of Mao and Deng’s actual wartime experience, with state propaganda casting him as the brave general in a martial battle against the virus.

Bill Bishop, another China-watcher, has published in his Sinocism newsletter a translation of the latest People’s Daily Xi hagiography: “General Secretary Xi Jinping, with the grandeur, foresight and vision of a Marxist statesman, has been as solid as a rock in the midst of the turbulent waves, and has planned for the risks and challenges, fully demonstrating the political wisdom, strategic determination, mission and commitment, feelings for the people and leadership art of a leader of a major party and state and has won the heartfelt love and high trust of the whole party, the whole army and the people of all ethnic groups in China.”

The party, the army and then the people: at least they are clear about the hierarchy.