It may seem absurd to suggest that the epidemic of the new coronavirus, COVID-19, has jeopardized the dominance of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), especially at a time when aggressive efforts to contain governments seem to be working.
But it would be a mistake to underestimate the political implications of China's biggest public health crisis in recent history.
According to a New York Times analysis, at least 760 million Chinese, more than half the country's population, are subjected to varying degrees of residential confinement. This had serious individual and overall consequences, of a young boy left alone at home for days after seeing the death of his grandfather at a major economic downturn. But it seems to have contributed to a dramatic drop in new infections outside of Wuhan, where the epidemic began, to low single digits.
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Even though Chinese leaders are touting their progress in controlling the virus, they are showing signs of stress. Like the elites of other autocracies, they feel the most vulnerable politically during crises. They know that when popular fear and frustration is high, even minor missteps can cost them dearly and cause serious power problems.
Outraged chinese
And frustration is an understatement. The Chinese public is indeed outraged by the authorities' first attempts to suppress information about the new virus, including the fact that it can be transmitted between humans. Nowhere was this more evident than in the outcry over the February 7 announcement that Wuhan's doctor Li Wenliang, whom local authorities accused of rumors when trying to warn his colleagues of the coronavirus in December, had died of it.
China's censorship apparatus being temporarily weakened probably because the censors had not received clear instructions on how to handle such stories, even the official newspapers printed the news of the Death of Lis on their first pages. And the business leaders, a typically apolitical group, denounced the conduct of the Wuhan authorities and demanded accountability.
What Xi knew
There is no doubt that the authorities' initial mismanagement of the epidemic is what has allowed it to spread so widely among health professionals. more than 3000 who have been infected so far have been particularly affected. And despite attempts by the central government to scapegoat local authorities, many health officials in Hubei province have been dismissed.
Unsurprisingly, Xi has worked hard to restore his image as a strong and competent leader. After the central government ordered the lockdown of Wuhan in late January, Xi appointed Premier Li Keqiang to head the coronavirus task force. But the fact that it was Li, not Xi, who went to Wuhan seemed to send the wrong message, as Xi realized the following days.
On February 3, at a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee, Xi took an unusually defensive tone in a speech that appeared to limit the damage. While Xi admitted that he had learned of the epidemic before sounding the alarm, he emphasized his personal role in the fight against the virus.
In addition, on February 10, Xi made a series of public appearances in Beijing, aimed at reinforcing the impression that he is firmly in control. Three days later, he dismissed the party leaders of Hubei Province and Wuhan Municipality for their mismanagement of the crisis. And two days after that, in an unprecedented move, the CCP released the Full Text from the speech of the Xis Internal Politburo Standing Committee.
Serious fallout
Although Xi has apparently regained his aura as the dominant leader, notably thanks to the CCP's propagandists, who are working overtime to restore his image, the political fallout will likely be serious. The deep tumult that marked these fleeting moments of relative cyber freedom during the two weeks, from late January to early February, when the censors lost their grip on the popular narrative, should be of great concern to the CCP.
Indeed, the CPC can be very adept at suppressing dissent, but repression is not eradication. Even a momentary interruption can trigger a bottled anti-diet feeling. We shudder as we think about what could happen to the CCP if the Chinese could speak freely for a few months, not just a few weeks.
The most significant political outcome of the COVID-19 epidemic may well be the erosion of support for the CPC among China's urban middle class. Not only has their life been severely disrupted by the epidemic and the response; they were fully aware of their helplessness in the face of a regime that values secrecy and its own power over public health and well-being.
In the post-Mao era, the Chinese people and the CCP adhered to an implicit social contract: the people tolerate the party's political monopoly, as long as the party achieves sufficient economic progress and adequate governance. Mismanagement by CPCs of the COVID-19 epidemic threatens this unspoken pact. In this sense, China's one-party regime may well be in a more precarious position than it thinks.
Minxin Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and a non-resident principal investigator at the German Marshall Fund in the United States.
This article was published with permission from Project Syndicate .
