China’s failing covid strategy leaves Xi Jinping with no good options

'Big Whites', the nickname for covid workers in white protective overalls, have become icons of unaccountable coercion. (Image: Getty)

The Economist

Sat, 03 Dec 2022

Readers of the People’s Daily, the Communist party’s official mouthpiece, could scan the issue of Nov 29 and come away thinking that the fight against covid-19 is going splendidly. A front-page commentary on Xi Jinping’s first decade as China’s leader praised him for controlling the pandemic, stabilising the economy and defusing crises. Of the surging number of new infections, of the dire state of the economy owing to widespread, strict and enduring public-health restrictions, and of the protests that have erup...

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