The people’s leader who fears the people risks becoming a Putin

President Xi’s unpopular zero-Covid policy was a mistake that resulted from his obsession with power

As Xi Jinping stays in power beyond the customary 10 years, he has not only made himself the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong but also a dictator-like figure.

But the de facto about-turn on the Zero Covid policy and the management of the funeral for former leader Jiang Zemin reveal that he still feels insecure. For all the pretence that China is perfecting the management of Covid restrictions as omicron is less lethal than earlier variants, few will fail to see the reality. What has changed is not the virus, but the outburst of public anger against a policy which Mr Xi proclaimed as showcasing the superiority of China’s Leninist system.

Protests against Covid restrictions that included calls for Mr Xi to step down clearly caught him by surprise. They triggered a three-dimensional response: suppress the protests, use digital technologies to intimidate against further protests, and remove the Covid restrictions that caused unrest. They will keep Mr Xi in power but will not make people safer.

Mr Xi’s insecurity was such that he could not risk holding a state funeral for Jiang Zemin, who died just after the protests were suppressed.

Unwilling to risk a physical event being hijacked by people to articulate their anger, Mr Xi is “the people’s leader” who fears the people. Both events raise a question: will Mr Xi’s massing of power make China a better place for its citizens and a better member of the international community?

By insisting on the Zero Covid approach long after others learned to live with the virus, and using enormous resources to quarantine people rather than vaccinate the old and build up the health service, he has put China in the worst possible situation. He imposed tighter restrictions for longer and still exposes the most vulnerable to the virus.

This reflects policy mistakes that contrast sharply with the Chinese Communist Party’s rule before him. Under collective leadership, it avoided policy mistakes that triggered a challenge to its right to rule after the 1989 unrest. Such a challenge has now emerged, after Mr Xi substituted collective wisdom with his own.

The Zero Covid policy, which also sets the economy back, is an extreme case – there are other examples. Mr Xi has also sapped the vitality of China’s entrepreneurial and dynamic private sector. By unleashing “wolf-warrior diplomats”, he has turned a world supportive of China’s modernisation into one worried about its resurgence. By backing Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, he has missed an opportunity for China to play global leader by brokering peace. The list goes on.

By making himself a dictator and forcing China to take a Sino-centric turn, Mr Xi has removed scope for technocrats to counsel against misguided policies, such as Zero Covid. His turn to nationalism has made China a greater threat to global peace, particularly with his obsession over Taiwan. The best interests of the Chinese people and the world require the former to ensure Mr Xi does not become a Putin figure with substantially greater destructive power at hand.

By making himself dictator, Mr Xi has removed scope for technocrats to counsel against misguided policies