Only two people across China died of Covid in a single day, Communist Party organs reported. Experts and scientists, on the other hand, spoke a completely different language: they estimate that at least 2,700 people died in Beijing alone.
A University of Hong Kong projection comes to the fatal conclusion that the opening of Covid-19 in China could kill a million people this winter. Ruler Xi is gone. In his last public statement on Nov. 10, he hailed his zero-Covid policy as the last word of wisdom.
Then came the protests and the nomenklatura suddenly realized they couldn’t continue the lockdown that started almost three years ago. The abolition of the entire regimental apparatus quickly revealed that Beijing has no real strategy for dealing with the omicron variant of the virus. The Party says: Now everyone in China has to fight for himself. Videos show overcrowded hospitals, body bags and crematoria at the limit. This is all Xi Jinping’s fault.
The Chinese no longer believe in the state propaganda that tries to make them believe that everything is fine. At the same time, millions and millions of people have relied on the support and guidance of the Party. You are not used to making your own decisions now. The party has lost the population and this could be the beginning of the end of communist tyranny in China. The coming weeks will decide whether Xi should step down to ensure the party’s survival.
*Alexander Görlach is a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York. His book “Red Alert: Why Beijing’s Aggressive Western Pacific Foreign Policy Is Leading to Global War” was recently published.