Recent demonstrations in China may have initially been protests against severe government lockdowns. But they quickly evolved into criticisms of censorship and the dictatorial style of leader Xi Jinping.
Xi is a classic micromanager. His régime has even tried to regulate how much toilet paper people can use by putting facial recognition cameras in public bathrooms. China has a growing Orwellian-named “social credit” system which punishes or rewards people based on how worthy or untrustworthy citizens’ behavior is – according to the ruling Communist Party.
The strict COVID lockdowns in China have seemed increasingly suspicious. China isn’t using the effective mRNA vaccines which have brought down the infection rate and reduced the seriousness of infections for people in North America, Europe, Japan, and South Korea; not sure why this is except, possibly, misplaced nationalism. Outside China such lockdowns are a tool of the pre-vaccine period of the pandemic.
My own impression is that Xi is using COVID policy as an excuse to increase his personal control over the population. Control freak Xi would rather have lockdowns than import better vaccines.
People in China are generally becoming fed up with Xi’s efforts to impose an intrusive digital Stalinism on the population. And the government’s so called “Zero Covid” restrictions are having a negative impact on the Chinese economy which is spilling over into international trade. Apple has production facilities in China, and because of government policy it is falling behind in production of iPhones.
China is trying to keep the rest of the world from following the current wave of dissent. Elon Musk’s mass firings and drastic weakening of moderation have helped China flood Twitter with spam to drown out reports about the protests.
Elon Musk Slashed Twitter's Safety Team. Then a Chinese Spam Campaign Ran Rampant
In a bizarre move, China is censoring World Cup coverage to keep people from seeing large crowds without masks.
China Appears To Be Censoring The World Cup Coverage Due To Lockdown Unrest
The Chinese Communist Party apparently doesn’t want Chinese people to see that the rest of the world is doing a better job at controlling COVID – without severely controlling people’s lives.
Like Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China is an example of what can happen when one person is allowed unlimited power. Democracy may be more messy but it does a better job in the long run.
