Zero-Covid in China Key to Xi Legacy as He Eyes Third Term

For many in China, strict Covid curbs are a source of ongoing misery, but for President Xi Jinping, they are a triumph NICOLAS ASFOURI AFP/File
For many in China, strict Covid curbs are a source of ongoing misery, but for President Xi Jinping, they are a triumph NICOLAS ASFOURI AFP/File
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Zero-Covid in China Key to Xi Legacy as He Eyes Third Term

For many in China, strict Covid curbs are a source of ongoing misery, but for President Xi Jinping, they are a triumph NICOLAS ASFOURI AFP/File
For many in China, strict Covid curbs are a source of ongoing misery, but for President Xi Jinping, they are a triumph NICOLAS ASFOURI AFP/File

For many in China, years of grueling lockdowns and privacy invasions aimed at extinguishing Covid have caused misery.

For President Xi Jinping, the virus curbs are a triumph, AFP said.

His zero-tolerance approach to Covid has become synonymous with the efforts to cement his authority over China and its ruling Communist Party (CCP).

The endgame begins on October 16, when thousands of party delegates will gather in Beijing for a major party congress at which he is expected to secure a historic third term.

"Xi's legacy and the legitimacy of the CCP are bound to the success of the zero-Covid campaign," Diana Fu, an expert on Chinese domestic politics at the Brookings Institution think tank, told AFP.

While the rest of the world has largely moved to live with Covid, Xi has insisted on draconian policies aimed at eliminating the virus.

The approach has crippled growth in the world's second-largest economy, which was already struggling with a debt-laden property sector and high youth unemployment.

But Xi has dug in his heels, declaring zero-Covid China's most "economic and effective" path forward, while maintaining policies that have deepened the state's control over the lives of its 1.4 billion people.

- Tests and QR codes -
The headline-grabbing planks of the campaign continue to be the snap lockdowns -- sometimes confining tens of millions of people to their homes for weeks or months.

In one of the recent shutdowns, some residents in the megacity of Chengdu were not allowed to go outside even when an earthquake shook their apartment buildings.

And in the economic hub of Shanghai, a months-long lockdown led to rare scenes of protests from middle-class and wealthy Chinese.

Public frustration has also pushed past China's internet censors and onto social media.

In one of the highest-profile cases, a bus crash in rural Guizhou province that killed 27 people on the way to a Covid quarantine facility sparked a surge of online criticism.

General curbs that erode privacy and limit movement have also caused anger and resentment.

Residents in many cities must obtain a negative coronavirus test every few days to gain access to public spaces.

They then use their smartphones to scan QR codes at entrances to offices, malls and restaurants and bring up their latest test results.

A green icon indicates they are free to enter, while red or amber means they may have, respectively, tested positive or passed near someone who has.

That could lead to anything from a few days of home isolation to weeks at a quarantine facility.

The system also tracks people's movements, leaving it open to abuse, such as when authorities were accused of thwarting anti-corruption protests this year by turning participants' codes red.

Before the pandemic, China's citizens were already under heavy surveillance.

Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute at the University of London, said the Covid-monitoring apparatus was "in line with the model of social control" spearheaded by Xi.

- 'No choice' -
China argues zero-Covid places human life above material concerns and has helped to avert the public health crises seen in other countries.

Officials have also voiced fears that the virus would overwhelm China's patchy healthcare system if allowed to spread unchecked, particularly in elderly rural communities.

So far, China has reported just over 5,000 Covid deaths compared with more than a million in the United States.

But while the milder Omicron virus variant has reduced the risk of reopening in many countries, China's curbs continue to extract hefty economic and social costs.

"They have to abandon zero-Covid ultimately," said Jin Dong-yan, a professor at Hong Kong University's School of Biomedical Sciences, calling it "wrong and against all scientific evidence".

The policy's initial success has created a sense of inertia among policymakers, according to Allen Wu, a professor at Nanjing University's medical school who has advised the World Health Organization.

"There is this mentality that we did such a wonderful job in 2020 and 2021... if we (now) do nothing and a huge number of people get infected, that basically gives away all you have achieved," he told AFP.

Many in China speak favorably of zero-Covid, with Fu of the Brookings Institution saying state propaganda had convinced most people of the need to cut cases "at all human and economic costs".

"A vast number of Chinese citizens still support draconian measures despite evident personal suffering," she said.

Even those at the extreme end of the policy have no option but to submit.

Airline engineer Ian Jiang has spent 200 days in isolation hotels throughout the pandemic, and China continues to enforce quarantines for overseas arrivals of up to two weeks.

Jiang, 38, described the measures as "very inconvenient for my personal life".

"But that's the Chinese government's policy," said Jiang. "You have no choice."

There is unlikely to be much overt opposition when Xi receives the adulation of party delegates at this month's Congress.

"The campaign, no matter the actual socioeconomic outcomes, will continue to be hailed as a triumph of Chinese socialism," Fu said.



Biden Warns that an Oligarchy is Forming that Threatens US Democracy

US President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/MANDEL NGAN / POOL
US President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/MANDEL NGAN / POOL
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Biden Warns that an Oligarchy is Forming that Threatens US Democracy

US President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/MANDEL NGAN / POOL
US President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 15 January 2025. EPA/MANDEL NGAN / POOL

President Joe Biden said an oligarchy is forming in the US that threatens democracy, issuing the bleak warning on Wednesday in his final Oval Office speech as he prepares to hand over power to Donald Trump next week.
Biden opened his speech with a familiar message - asking Americans to join together - but quickly warned about a dangerous concentration of wealth in the United States.
"Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that really threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedom, and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead," Biden said.
He warned of a "tech industrial complex" that is bringing an "avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power." The free press, he added, "is crumbling."
Biden's farewell address, capping half a century in politics, sought to bolster a legacy that has been overshadowed by Democrats' failure to stop the Republican Trump from returning to the White House, Reuters said.
Trump, who takes office at noon (1700 GMT) on Monday, has enlisted billionaire Elon Musk, who helped his election efforts, as a special adviser charged with cutting costs from the federal government.
Trump has nominated a slate of cabinet members who have pledged to upend traditional American alliances and governing norms. The November 2024 election left the Democratic Party with little leverage in national politics.
Biden ran for president in 2020 as a transition figure, but opted at the unprecedented age of 80 to run for reelection, convinced he was the only Democrat who could beat Trump.
Forced out of the race in July after a disastrous debate against Trump, Biden has been blamed by some Democrats for their November wipeout, after Vice President Kamala Harris' whirlwind campaign lost every battleground state.
Biden and his allies oversaw the recovery from COVID-19, funded an infrastructure revival, sparked new semiconductor chips manufacturing, and tackled climate change as they tried to rebalance inequality and invest in the future. He leaves an outperforming US economy and optimistic businesses.
But Biden was unable to heal divisions in the country the way he had hoped, or stop democratic backsliding around the world. Now the Republican president-elect has vowed to undo much of what the Democratic administration accomplished.
"All Joe Biden wanted was to be remembered for the great things he did for this country and, at least in the short run, they've been eclipsed by his ill-conceived decision to run," said David Axelrod, a former adviser to President Barack Obama.
"He became a historic president when he defeated Trump. So obviously the fact that Trump is resurgent and returning to power, more powerful than he was when he left, is an unhappy coda to the story."
BIDEN DEFENDS HIS RECORD
Biden addressed what he described as an ongoing threat to the country in a letter released early Wednesday by the White House.
"I ran for president because I believed that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was at stake. And, that’s still the case," he said, urging Americans to keep fighting for the country's focus on equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
A White House official said legacies are set over the long term.
“In historical terms, it has been a millisecond since the election. This president has locked in the most significant legislative record since LBJ (President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s), and the irreversible benefits of those laws will grow over decades," the official said.
Senator Chris Coons, a longtime ally, said that when Biden took office he faced an economic crisis, a public health crisis, and a democracy crisis following the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.
"The country was in the depths of crises. The recovery from that pandemic has been his single greatest accomplishment," Coons said.
Biden's administration oversaw the distribution of COVID vaccines and an economic recovery that defied predictions of a recession, even as inflation soared and prices remained high, which soured voters on his economic stewardship.
Republicans capitalized on public frustration in last year's election, accusing Democrats of elitism and disconnect from working-class voters, while blaming immigrants for high prices, despite a lack of evidence.
“You cannot reverse four and a half decades of rising inequality with a few years of absolute good economic outcomes and policy changes,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “But one of the most fundamental things they did was provide relief recovery at the scale that was needed to generate a strong jobs recovery."
AFGHANISTAN, ISRAEL
Biden, who spent more than three decades in the US Senate and eight years as vice president to Obama, cites a unified Western response to Russia's war with Ukraine, the strengthening of alliances and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as key foreign policy achievements.
Thirteen US military personnel died during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021, and Biden's popularity never recovered.
His staunch support for Israel in its war in Gaza after the deadly Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, split the Democratic Party, and Biden's reputation with the left suffered.
Vincent Rigby, a former senior national security adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, said Biden would forever be remembered as an "interlude" president despite his solid achievements in rebuilding trust in the United States after Trump’s first term.
“We’ll see how history treats him five, 10, 15 years from now, but he’ll be seen as the president between the two Trump presidencies. He held the line, but Trump came back.