There is absolutely no doubt that the world has come to a standstill due to the failure of the Xi Jinping government of not only containing the Wuhan virus but also lying to its citizens and blinding the world by colluding with the WHO. While the focus of the international media shifts away from China, Xi Jinping hasn’t been left off the hook albeit this time by his colleagues at the Chinese Communist Party who have become increasingly disillusioned with Jinping’s authoritarian handling of the virus.
Anyone who dared to expose the failings of the Chinese government during the peak of the Wuhan virus in China was silenced and mysteriously disappeared. Ever since Xi Jinping ascended to power in 2012, his lust for the state to control the media has been visible. Hence, the disappearing of a couple of citizen journalists didn’t raise a storm as it had become a commonplace in Jinping’s China.
However, Xi Jinping crossed a line when he business tycoon and a member of the Chinese Communist Party, Ren Zhiqiang was mysteriously disappeared. Zhiqiang is considered to be close to the Chinese Vice-President, Wang Qishan.
Ren Zhiqiang had made a name for himself as he not even once did he mince words whenever he criticised Xi Jinping. In his article, Ren slammed Jinping for creating a situation of a “crisis of governance” within China’s Communist Party as he blamed the lack of freedom of speech and the press which was directly responsible for slowing down the response to combat the coronavirus.
On Xi Jinping’s speech, Reg wrote that after analyzing the Chinese President’s speech he “saw not an emperor standing there exhibiting his ‘new clothes,’ but a clown stripped naked who insisted on continuing being emperor.” Ren has in the past criticised Xi Jinping over his move to control the property market. He in the past has strongly hit out against Xi Jinping’s assertion that China’s state media should be aligned to the Communist Party.
The disappearance of Ren is a testament to the fact that the Chinese government is increasingly getting paranoid under Xi Jinping. It is believed that Ren is being held at a secret prison in a suburb in Beijing and he will face a punishment for a minimum of 15 years for daring to criticise the supreme leader. Ren’s interrogators have been received strict orders from the CCP’s top hierarchy to have no mercy on Ren.
In Ren’s memoir, he revealed that Vice-President Wang Qishan, was his high-school classmate in Beijing.
Political observes in China believe that Xi Jinping’s authoritarian and callous response to the virus will see him be exposed to more accusations from his party members. For a large portion of time, Jinping didn’t make a single public appearance when Wuhan became the epicentre of the virus. Even when Jinping finally visited Wuhan after the situation became conducive, he didn’t visit any of the hospital wards and spoke to a select few doctors through video conference.
This has not escaped the prying eyes of the members of the CCP as Xi Jinping refused to lead from the front in the face of a crisis. Only a clown would seek appreciation for himself after his actions (in this case, lack of) caused such widespread devastation. When the top officials in Wuhan called for the Chinese to thank Xi Jinping, it spectacularly backfired.
When Wang Zhonglin, Communist party secretary of Wuhan came calling to “educate” Wuhan residents on how to show gratitude to President Xi Jinping, it turned out to be massive PR disaster as the Chinese netizens unleashed their anger on the government. Unsurprisingly, the backlash received online forced the Chinese officials to scrub the media reports on “gratitude education” from news sites.
“What should I be thankful for?” wrote a Weibo user as he claimed that he had not received his government benefits and was having to pay high prices for food during the crisis.
“Next the government should apologise to people as soon as possible. It’s time to reflect and find people who are responsible for today’s situation,” wrote Fang Fang on Weibo who a well-known author and former director of the Hubei Writers’ Association.
However, the embarrassment didn’t stop there. When Vice Premier Sun Chunlan led an entourage in Wuhan purportedly to showcase the success of the Chinese government, the entourage was met with the screams of Wuhan residents who screamed from the balconies, “It’s fake, it’s fake!”
Xi Jinping instead of accepting the failures of his government and taking up healing measures has decided to unleash a full-blown propaganda on its citizens which too have been marred by blunders like the “gratitude education” stunt and the handling of the death of whistleblower Dr Wenliang. “Internal directives from press control officials now suggest this has been a full-blown public opinion crisis for the party, and that the wound was self-inflicted,” according to a Hong Kong-based research programme.
In an interesting turn of events, Taiwan-based China commentator Paul Lin, feels that Ren was just echoing the sentiments of his friend and Vice President Wang. There have been rumours that Wang has been demoted from his ceremonial position after he was banned from attending the Politburo’s Standing Committee meetings.
It is believed that differences cropped up when Wang was leading the charge to solve trade conflict with the country’s biggest trading partner which ultimately led to Wang’s sidelining.
Xi Jinping has been further rocked by an open letter which has been circulating online since the last week which suggests that a plenum should be convened of the Politburo to reflect on “Xi’s wrongs” which not include the farcical handling of the virus but also Jinping’s failures on the economic and trade front since assuming office in 2012 and decide if he should step down as president, party chief and commander of the military. A plenum is the convening of the Central Committee which comprises 205 full and 171 alternate members; during which time the committee’s Politburo proposes policies for review or approval.
Anyone who follows the Chinese Communist Party would know that the party has been riddled with increasing factionalism with varied form of importance as the CCP has never been a monolithic group. However, Xi Jinping has been arguably the strongest Chinese leader since Mao Zedong has alienated the factions in his ascendancy to undisputed power.
The Shanghai Clique or Princelings is one such important faction in the party who have been known to be inclined towards liberalisation and political reforms. Much to the dismay of Xi, the open letter has been relayed by a few members of the Princeling faction.
Xi Jinping’s paranoia and quest for unilateral control over everything has cost Chine dearly. There is no doubt that after the pandemic is over, China will never be the same dragon that wowed the world. But well before the pandemic, Jinping decided to alienate the country’s biggest trading partner, the USA which has damaged China’s economy greatly.
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China who gained entry into the World Trade Organisation through the backing of the USA saw the trade war plunge its economy into crisis as China’s rapid growth in the past decade is owed to its rapid investment in infrastructure but it came at a cost. The cost of rising debt burden on the Chinese economy. Just as Chinese authorities were helping the country move towards a more sustainable model of growth by basing the country’s economy on its rising consumer class rather than investments in infrastructure, in an attempt to clear its mountain of debt, the trade war with the US has acted as a death knell to the country’s attempt at deleveraging.
In 2018, it was estimated that the pause to remove debt, will increase the debt to GDP ratio by 12.3 percentage points to a whopping 274.5 per cent by the end of 2018. China’s $10 trillion shadow banking system will only worsen the health of its economy with the possibility of people getting credit through it and causing a leakage in its economy. The battle to decrease the debts will only get tougher post the pandemic.
What would have irked the CCP members is the fact that Jinping cowered down after picking up a fight he knew he wouldn’t have been able to win. China recently announced the lowering of tariffs on 1,585 products which cover metals, textiles, minerals, machinery and electrical equipment, goods which have all been the target of US tariffs. This move has brought down the overall tariff level down to 7.5% from 9.8% in 2017.
The Hong Kong independence protests and its aftermath has further eroded Jinping’s Presidency. The Wuhan virus saw the Chinese Communist Party facing unprecedented criticism form its citizens as lack of freedom of press exposed the party to open letters and online criticism which spread like wildfire.
There is a likely possibility that after the deadly pandemic, the world led by the US will impose crippling sanctions on China. If that happens, it will not be far-fetched to say that the Chinese Communist Party would be willing to sacrifice Jinping to save the party.
