The venerable Times is recycling 1950s headlines to save editorial costs, unaware that Charles was crowned king, and 82% of Chinese support Dynamic Covid Zero1.
Hard Liner?
Chinese respect Xi for doubling their incomes in eight years, ending homelessness and poverty, and commissioning the most powerful fleet afloat. If he imposed hardline policies, they would try to comply. But he didn’t need to so he didn’t, and he won't because he can't.
Xi is a second-generation pol. Even Mao publicly admired his father’s political skills. Xi himself was Village Party Secretary at age nineteen and built its first public latrine/methane generator2. Xi knows that most Chinese are politically far to his right. He's been trying to abolish the death penalty for a decade without success3. Ditto GM foods. And executing corrupt officials will never lose its charm for the Chinese. Never.
Because Xi gets real time statistics from daily national and provincial surveys4, he knows that 82% of Chinese are happy with Dynamic Covid Zero tradeoffs. He and they know something else that we don’t: Covid Zero saves them trillions of dollars and millions of lives5.
That’s a democratic outcome, because Xi lacks the power to force a hard line policy on the citizenry. Xi is a civil servant who chairs two important committees, but is not an executive chairman. He didn’t choose the committee members and can’t fire them. Without their unanimous support he cannot even send legislation to Congress. Even then, it must garner two-thirds support before it comes up for a vote, to weed out wasteful/unpopular legislation. The few that make it through though, are guaranteed winners. How many Western government policies get 82% support?
Hundreds of high-spirited kids are losing mating opportunities, but why make an international case of it?
Aspiring politicians still start that way.
He has whittled down the list of offenses that attract the death penalty.
China’s government spends more on surveys than the world’s other governments combined. Polling is a big, labor intensive industry.
Western mainstream media continues to insist that leaders like Xi and Putin are veritable dictators who make arbitrary decisions. It is so infantile.