China's Corona turnaround: A victory for the protesters - and a defeat for Xi?

Created: 07/12/2022 17:31

By: Sven Hauberg

After the Corona protests, China's leadership reversed course and significantly eased the Covid measures.

What does this concede mean for President Xi Jinping's authority?

Munich/Beijing – It was a funeral service without emotions, strictly choreographed and over after an hour.

First a minute's silence for the deceased, then the Chinese national anthem, intoned by hundreds of throats hidden behind face masks.

Finally, Xi Jinping steps up to the lectern.

"Comrades, friends!" China's head of state and party leader called out to the mourners and the millions of Chinese who had been asked to gather in front of the television screens.

"Today we are holding a memorial service at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to mourn our beloved comrade Jiang Zemin with deep sorrow."

Jiang Zemin, who ruled China from 1989 to 2002, passed away at the end of November after a long illness.

When China's state media announced the death, the country was in the midst of perhaps its biggest political crisis in decades.

A few days earlier, in dozens of cities across the country, people had taken to the streets to demonstrate against the government's zero-Covid policy.

After almost three years of the pandemic, they had enough of the eternal lockdowns, the forced quarantine, the daily corona tests.

And from China's leadership.

"Down with Xi Jinping, down with the Communist Party!" chanted the demonstrators in Shanghai.

People watch a live broadcast of a speech by Xi Jinping at the memorial ceremony for the late former Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Beijing.

© Andy Wong/dpa

Jiang's death, some observers believed, could act as an accelerant.

Because once before, in the spring of 1989, shortly before Jiang took office, China found itself in a similar heated situation.

At that time, the death of the ex-head of state Hu Yaobang, popular among the people as a reformer, led to nationwide mourning rallies and finally to student protests, to desperate calls for democracy and freedom.

The leadership in Beijing was divided on how to deal with the protests.

In the end, those in the Politburo who demanded a hard line prevailed.

And so the party sent tanks into the capital, driving the demonstrators apart.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed in the streets surrounding Tiananmen Square.

China relaxes its corona measures

The death of Jiang Zemin also caused the Chinese to mourn publicly.

Hundreds of thousands on the country's social networks commemorated the man with the huge glasses and jovial manner, who today seems almost liberal and modern compared to hardliner Xi Jinping.

"What a pity it wasn't you," reads a song shared on China's Twitter counterpart Weibo before censorship struck.

Of course, what was meant was Xi.

And yet, for Xi Jinping, Jiang's death seems something of a stroke of luck.

Because Xi used the stage that the funeral service offered him on Tuesday to issue an open warning to his opponents.

In 1989, "severe political unrest broke out in China," Xi said;

However, Jiang Zemin, then still party leader in Shanghai, supported "the correct decision" by the leadership in Beijing to "take a clear position against the unrest".

That means it was right to shoot at the students back then.

And: We would do it again in an emergency.

Xi did not mention that Jiang had managed to end the protests in Shanghai without bloodshed.

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For the time being, the Corona protesters have fallen silent.

Because their protests seem to have worked.

The first cities announced last week that they would relax their corona measures.

The central government also reacted this Wednesday and announced a ten-point plan that will probably herald the end of the zero-Covid policy.

Corona tests are only necessary in “high risk” areas and in schools.

Infected people with only mild symptoms or no symptoms at all can now isolate themselves at home - the forced admission to China's notorious quarantine centers is history.

Traveling from one province to another has also been made easier.

Beijing also announced a vaccination campaign for older people – probably the most important prerequisite for even greater easing.

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How much pressure is China's head of state Xi Jinping under?

Xi Jinping, it seems, has given in to pressure from the streets.

But what does that mean for the authority of the party leader, who was only confirmed for a historic third term in October?

Will he emerge stronger from the crisis, or has it weakened him?

Possibly both are correct.

On the outside, Xi now comes across as someone who listens to his people, who responds when they want new policies.

At the memorial service for Jiang Zemin, Xi said his late predecessor "had the great courage to make decisive decisions," he "kept up with the times," and "always grasped the trends and opportunities of the times."

There was also a good deal of self-praise.

It was a signal to the people that he too – i.e. Xi – is ready to adjust his policies if circumstances have changed.

According to the official reading, it is the less dangerous omicron variant that makes it possible to readjust the Chinese corona strategy.

However, state propaganda studiously ignores the fact that Omikron arrived in China months ago.

It is unclear how Xi's "buckling" in front of the protest movement will be viewed within the Communist Party.

Are many party leaders secretly relieved about the beginning of the end of the zero-Covid policy?

Or, in their eyes, has Xi shown weakness by easing the corona measures so closely associated with his name?

In any case, since the party congress in October, Xi has been firmly in the saddle like never before. He is considered the most powerful party leader since the founder of the state, Mao Zedong.

The Standing Committee of the Politburo, China's power center, now consists exclusively of Xi loyalists, and he has eliminated internal opponents.

And yet: Contrary to expectations, Xi was only able to partially upgrade his role in the party constitution.

the resistance to this in the ranks of the powerful party elders was evidently too great.

Xi Jinping faces another test

More importantly, next March, Xi faces another test if he wants to be re-elected president by the National People's Congress, China's sham parliament.

Xi's close confidante, Li Qiang, is also to be appointed as the new prime minister in March.

Both are likely, but not yet set in stone.

The votes should be an indicator of how much control Xi still has over his party after the protests.

And something else makes the situation unpredictable.

What if millions of Chinese get infected with the virus in the coming weeks and months, if thousands die?

Will Xi then tighten the reins again?

And how will the population react?

Relieved because the fear of a corona infection in China is still great, also thanks to tireless state propaganda?

Or angry because the zero-Covid policy was believed to have been overcome?

The easing of the corona measures is a risk that Xi consciously took.

It is quite possible that his turnaround will fall on his feet.