CCP Claims ‘Decisive Victory’ in Pandemic Prevention to Mask Xi’s Ruling Crisis: Analysts

Rare Protests Erupt Across China, Residents Demand Xi Jinping Step Down

Chinese leader Xi Jinping recently claimed a “decisive victory” of his national pandemic measures since November 2022. His talk took place as mass deaths have further devastated the entire nation after three years of strict zero-COVID policy that ruined both lives and the economy of the nation. Analysts said it indicated Xi’s rule is faced with a threat. His talk was to cover up the disastrous pandemic and the shady finance.

At the Party’s Central Committee Political Bureau (Politburo) meeting on Feb. 16, Xi said the Party, “with Xi at its core, has always put the people and their lives first,” the leadership has pulled the entire nation through a pandemic, and created “a remarkable feat in the history of human civilization,” the state media Xinhua reported.

Analysts told The Epoch Times that with the upcoming two sessions national meetings, Xi felt the pressure and is setting up a tone to lead the narrative for the meetings. In particular, the recent white paper movement and the Wuhan elderly demonstration have sent alarming signals to his dictatorship.

Two sessions refers to the meetings of China’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress (NPC), and its top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which are scheduled on March 4 and 5 this year.

Threat to Xi’s Authority

Yuan Hongbing, a scholar and commentator in Australia, said the regime is engaging in a new round of “state lies” through this talk. He believed the recent Chinese social dynamics have worried Xi and led many in the Politburo to come up with new propaganda.

Yuan indicated that his internal resources in the Party told him that Xi has been mocked by the general public according to the many confidential reports on the society over his chaotic decision from strict COVID policy to sudden lift of the measures.

The “decisive victory” was the idea of Xi’s lackeys to try to rebuild Xi’s collapsed authority, he said.

A girl is swabbed by health workers as she is given a COVID-19 nucleic acid test in Dongcheng District in Beijing, China on Jan. 23, 2021. (Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)

Social Upheaval

Yuan said Xi is solely responsible for the recent white paper movement and Wuhan elderly protest.

Xi’s brutal zero-COVID and lockdown measures led to the white paper movement, and the drain of national finances during the prevention and control of the pandemic deprived the elderly of health benefits, causing the Wuhan elderly protest.

Yuan said that both movements have one thing in common: “People demand ‘Xi Jinping step down, CCP step down,’ in the white paper movement; and in the Wuhan elderly protest, people demand ‘Down with the reactionary government.’”

The white paper movement erupted over a fatal apartment fire on Nov. 24, 2022, that killed at least 10 people in a quarantined building in Urumqi, the capital of China’s Xinjiang region, and Chinese protesters showed solidarity against the regime’s zero-COVID policy.

The elderly protests took place in February when the regime adopted the health care reform which affected retirees’ health benefits and forced large-scale protests first in Wuhan, central China, and then in Dalian, northeast China.

People realized that all the suffering they have endured wasn’t just created by the local officials, but the top leadership. Yuan said, “Such a resistance movement is one step closer to the national resistance and the people’s uprising.”

Xi to Shirk off Responsibility

Li Mianying, a Chinese philosopher and writer, said that the recent propaganda from the regime is to set a tone for the upcoming two sessions. It is designed to deflect Xi’s responsibility for the massive Chinese deaths during the pandemic and the recent elderly protests.

Li explained the definition of the tone as “not many people have died,” and “the deaths in China were the lowest in the world.”

The tone must be set for the strict zero-COVID policy as “correct,” and the consequential death rate as the “lowest,” before the two sessions. As for the exact number of deaths, since there’s no freedom of press, “Whatever number the Chinese Communist Party says, that will be it,” Li stated.

As for the elderly protests, Li believed it was mainly due to depleted finances. “People will question why the money was gone during the two sessions.”

Li said there are two factors that contributed to the drained national finances. One is that the senior cadres and officials consumed too much, taking up the medical insurance benefits of the people. And the other is the massive nucleic acid testing costs wasted a huge amount of state finance.

“The regime would not dare to cancel the medical benefits of senior cadres, it wouldn’t even dare to reveal this fact to the public. It will kill the Party if it’s uncovered,” he said.

The main purpose of Xi’s talk was to hide the drained finance, let alone officials occupying the medical insurance quota of the people.

Both Yuan and Li emphasized that Xi has missed his opportunity to recognize the doomed failure of dictatorship and to lead China with political reforms. He’s filled his new leadership cabinet with people “lacking common sense about laws and the economy,” Yuan stated.

Li said “his opportunity is gone.”

Yuan said “social upheaval is inevitable.”

Haizhong Ning and Luo Ya contributed to this report.