China Eases ‘Zero Covid’ Restrictions in Victory for Protesters

The controls have become harder to justify as rapidly spreading Omicron variants continued to slip through, and especially as the rest of the world has increasingly adjusted to living with the virus. Public discontent boiled over in late November with protests that were the most widespread challenge to the party in decades — hurting Mr. Xi’s image as a leader and defying his longstanding rhetoric that the policy enjoyed broad support and was necessary to improve people’s lives.

“By now, Xi Jinping should also understand that this virus can’t be controlled, and if it can’t be controlled, then opening up must happen sooner or later,” said Deng Yuwen, a former editor at a Communist Party newspaper, the Study Times, who now lives in the United States and writes commentaries about Chinese politics. “But most fundamental of all, the economy can’t hold up any longer. If they try tightening up again, the ordinary people would really raise hell.”

The measures, by being so expansive and often seemingly arbitrarily enforced, have chipped away at the drive and ambition that powered China’s success in recent decades. More important, the commercial slowdown “zero Covid” caused undermined a key tenet of the party’s rule, that in exchange for democratic freedoms, the people would enjoy steady economic growth and the chance at a better life.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/07/world/asia/china-zero-covid-protests.html