China’s failing covid strategy leaves Xi Jinping with no good options
Loosen up and deaths soar. Clamp down and the economy swoons
Readers of the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, could scan the issue of November 29th and come away thinking that the fight against covid-19 is going splendidly. A front-page commentary on Xi Jinping’s first decade as China’s leader praised him for controlling the pandemic, stabilising the economy and defusing crises. Of the surging number of new infections, of the dire state of the economy owing to widespread, strict and enduring public-health restrictions, and of the protests that have erupted around the country against Mr Xi’s “zero-covid” strategy, there was not a whisper.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Zero options”
From the December 3rd 2022 edition
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