Xi Jinping’s credibility ‘badly wounded’ as China’s Covid death toll mounts
As an unparalleled coronavirus outbreak swept through China in December, President Xi Jinping remained mostly silent on the health crisis in the world’s most populous country.
But during an annual pre-recorded New Years Eve address broadcast by state television on Saturday, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong finally made a call for unity while defending his handling of the pandemic.
“Since the outbreak of the epidemic, we have always put people first and life first, adhered to scientific and precise prevention and control, optimised and adjusted prevention and control measures according to the time and situation, and maximised the protection of people’s lives and health,” he said.
Countries including the US, Italy and Japan imposed negative Covid test requirements for air passengers from China amid a dearth of reliable official data from Beijing and rising fears of new mutations of the virus.
Elizabeth Freund Larus, an adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum, a US foreign policy research institute, said the measures highlighted a “lack of trust” in Xi’s administration.
“US officials believe that the Chinese government has been less than forthcoming about the origins of Covid-19 and less than truthful about the number of positive Covid cases in China,” she said.
“The Chinese government allowed millions of tourists to travel domestically and abroad for lunar new year in 2020 knowing that there was a new coronavirus infecting the population. When the mortality and infection rate became evident . . . it was already out of control in the US.
“Washington is not going to make the same mistake twice.”
Additional reporting by Xinning Liu and Ryan McMorrow in Beijing
This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Edward White
