DYER: Chinese leader disregarding all in effort to become dictator for life

even had one booster shot. Nothing must be allowed to suggest that the zeroCOVID policy is failing. Why?

Because an absolute dictator must appear infallible. Xi has boasted so much of the ‘success’ of his victory over COVID, made it so much his own signature achievement, that no doubt can be admitted – especially at a time when he is planning to make his dictator-forlife status official.

This autumn marks the end of the two five-year terms that Xi would have been permitted under the Communist Party’s post-Mao rules, which were designed precisely to thwart other would-be absolute dictators from gaining powers.

His plan was to be elected to a rule-breaking third term at the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party next October or November,

and even a year ago he looked like a shoo-in.

Xi has purged and/or jailed a great many senior officials on corruption charges, and those who were still in office seemed thoroughly cowed. Nevertheless, there are still a lot of senior party people who think that one-man rule is always a mistake.

Xi’s complicity with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and his continuing COVID blunder also count against him with many important people, and the Party Congress, normally a choreographed, almost ritual event, could theoretically turn against him.

You’d still be unwise to bet against Xi’s chances of a third term (and as many more as his lifespan allows), but he himself is now running scared. Which probably means that there will be no change in the current, crazy

COVID policy at least until the end of the year.