As Shanghai locks down, China's struggle with COVID-19 is getting more serious with repercussions for Xi Jinping and the globe, writes ianbremmer
a plan designed to keep COVID-19 infection numbers as close to zero as possible. The plan has been successful in limiting the spread of the virus. China’s leaders have reported fewer than 5,000 deaths over the course of the pandemic as the death toll in the U.S. nears 1 million.
This reality has forced an easing of some zero-COVID rules. Instead of being forced into overwhelmed hospitals, infected people with mild symptoms can now report to local quarantine facilities. The length of some quarantines has been reduced. But despite the economic damage already done, the massive lockdown in Shanghai demonstrates that China’s government isn’t ready to change course.
All this trouble comes at a politically sensitive moment. This fall, a Communist Party Congress is expected to ratify a landmark decision to award Xi Jinping a third term as China’s leader. Since the pandemic erupted, Xi has tried to deflect blame for COVID-19’s origins and for the early censorship that allowed the virus to go global. He’s made his case for the superiority of China’s system by pointing to the political turmoil, economic fallout, and higher death toll in America and Europe.
But the Omicron variant has made life in China far more complicated. It’s hit the country hard because so few Chinese have been either infected with COVID-19 or jabbed with the more effective vaccines found in the U.S. and Europe.will come sooner rather than later.