Protests across China reflect a governing crisis — that’s bad news for Xi Jinping

China's harsh measures to control coronavirus have drawn global scrutiny. (Image credit: Reuters)

From Shanghai, Wuhan, and Guangzhou, Chengdu to Beijing, protests are ongoing across China. This spontaneous outcry has united the demand for ending COVID-19-related lockdown restrictions. The party-controlled State has put its entire population under unprecedented restrictions to fight against the virus through a ‘zero-Covid’ policy — border restrictions, quarantine, testing, and snap lockdowns.

The government not only clamped down on the news online within China by random checks of cell phones and sharing apps, but even spammed Twitter to unsolicited sites to obscure the protest news abroad. Despite these strict policies, the situation on the ground looks far from sanguine.

China is not alien to protests and public outcry. But the current protests follow the death of at least 10 people in the apartment fire in Urumqi on November 24, the provincial capital of Xinjiang, China’s restive region in the west. It is reported that the lockdown exacerbated rescue efforts.

Unlike other issues in Xinjiang, this accident resonated among Chinese citizens in major provincial capitals, and elite universities such as Tsinghua and Peking, leading to severe criticism of government policies, and calls even for ‘Xi step down’ — Xi xia tai, China’s national anthem and other non-verbal protests like holding blank sheets of paper, and placards. Although intellectual criticisms of the regime and the leadership have been witnessed recently, such direct calls by the protesters for the party core to step down are unheard of, given the nature of the political control under the current regime. More so after the recently-concluded 20th party congress.

Xi Jinping, who has retained the reins of the Chinese Community Party yet again, for the third time, indicated in his party congress political report that the war against COVID-19 had ‘tremendously encouraging achievements and responses’ and ‘won international recognition’. As the official reports indicate much lesser casualties than in other countries, the constant on-off lockdowns seem to be the order of the day in the lives of ordinary Chinese people.

On the other hand, as the party derives its legitimacy as a vanguard of the people, its motto of wei renmin fuwu (‘serving the people’) can be misplaced in solving such a health crisis, given its often pronounced governance superiority to other systems. Besides, the people have become the target of mobilisation on all fronts. Glamourising deaths as sacrifices and martyrs as ‘model’ party members or cadre have increased. This shows all and sundry for the party.

Therefore, protests such as these are the signal of a governance crisis. The unveiling of the new leadership indicates this trend. Although work experience and education are essential qualifications for upward political mobility, the foremost ‘virtue’ for the current cohort is ‘political loyalty’ (zhengzhi zhongcheng). That is, a follower of the party centre and core. The approach adopted by Li Qiang, a former Shanghai party boss, to handle the municipality’s COVID-19 crisis last spring, was a debacle. This Chinese-style ‘spoils system’ is quite a departure in the present context where more redness than expertise with ‘loyalty and trust’ is the pre-eminent virtue.

Moreover, the policy of using home-manufactured vaccines has further compounded the problem. These vaccines' efficacy in fighting the new strains of the virus, such as Omicron, is limited as these strains are more contagious than the original variant. Beijing’s vaccine autarky policies cannot solve the problem in the long run. Domestic vaccine production needs to be complemented by allowing imports to mitigate the ongoing crisis.

At the global level, where other nations are enjoying sporting extravagances like the ongoing FIFA World Cup without lockdowns and masks, some serious thought on its system's ‘efficiency’ or ‘superiority’ is in question. At the same time, many of these footballing countries, especially from Eastern Europe and Latin America, are buyers and donees of Chinese vaccines. This can be felt more within than outside for a rising power like China, especially among its ever-increasing educated urban middle class.

The party’s self-governance model has not adequately reflected the ‘people’s interests’ but prioritised maintaining ‘political stability’ (zhengzhi weiwen) at all costs for regime survival and continuity. However, without people’s welfare at the centre, the party’s call for a ‘whole process democracy’ model at the recent party congress will be an empty rhetoric in the proposed new era of politics. Otherwise, despite its vast military and economic power, China will witness an unhappy society with a repressive polity in the future. The recent protests are a litmus test for the governing party-ruled State.