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Analysis Gwynne Dyer

‘‘Our Covid-19 policy is the most scientifically effective, the most economical, and yields the best result,’’ insisted the People’s Daily newspaper in China after mass public protests against the government’s ‘‘zero Covid’’ policy last weekend. If President Xi Jinping believes that, he is in for a lot more trouble.

The protests were unprecedented in their scale and daring. They broke out spontaneously in 12 cities all across China after 10 lockdown-related deaths in the remote province of Xinjiang. All sorts of people took part, from students to workers to pensioners. A few even called for the dethroning of Xi and the Communist Party.

That doesn’t mean the regime is on the brink of collapse. Public anger at the endless lockdowns and resulting loss of income is strong, but the regime’s surveillance technology is excellent. There was relatively little official violence last weekend, but many of the protesters will have an unpleasant visit by the police in the coming days.

Xi’s problem is that the protests will probably recur and may well escalate, because over-long mass quarantines and lockdowns are a non-political issue that can unite almost everybody against the government’s policy. Or rather, against Xi’s personal policy, for he has deliberately chosen to portray zero-Covid as the greatest achievement of his time in office.

That made sense in the first year of the pandemic, for China’s relentless lockdowns and mass testing campaigns saved a great many lives then. Total Covidrelated deaths in China have been around 5000 out of a population of 1.4 billion. The United States, with less than a quarter of China’s population, had more than a million Covid deaths.

Xi and his propagandists naturally used this contrast as evidence that both Chinese medicine and the Chinese political system were superior to their Western equivalents. Was he even aware that the zero-Covid policy could only be a stopgap measure until effective vaccines were developed, never a lasting solution? His scientists must have tried to tell him that, but somehow he didn’t take the message on board.

There was a vaccination programe, but not a very rigorous one – and Xi kept chasing the fantasy of completely eliminating the Covid virus. He is caught in a trap, but he built it himself.

‘‘Lockdowns should always be a temporary phenomenon, not a long-term strategy,’’ explained Dr Anthony Fauci, now President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. Continuing them for almost three years ‘‘without any seeming purpose or endgame’’ is sheer folly. Moreover, Xi seemed unaware that the Covid virus was growing more infectious with time.

National News

en-nz

2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://fairfaxmedia.pressreader.com/article/281659669065562

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