Totalitarian leaders don’t reverse themselves. Given they are in total control they don’t want to reverse themselves. And, given they are in total control they don’t have to reverse themselves. Certainly not completely, and definitely not overnight. For to make a 180-dgreee turn, and to make it suddenly, is to admit defeat. Or, at least to admit, if only implicitly, to a major mistake.
We are unlikely ever to know exactly what persuaded China’s President Xi Jinping to end, effectively from one moment to the next, his longstanding and militant zero Covid policy. Cause and effect remain opaque in this case precisely because what has been considered cause – a rare instance of public protests in some of China’s largest cities – would normally simply be squelched. Totalitarian regimes never respond to people power. To the contrary, they do the opposite. They do as they are doing in Iran. They hang dissenters. They don’t encourage them by acceding to what they want.
Yet hard on the heels of his greatest political triumph – Xi recently was granted an unprecedented third term in office – he chose to back down. To reverse course completely by surrendering what had been his signature policy, zero Covid. The abrupt nature of Xi’s reversal became immediately apparent. China’s health care system was totally unprepared for the overnight change in health care policy, with consequences that predictably were severe. It has been reported that within weeks, half of Beijing’s 22 million residents were infected.
Given the unprecedented nature of Xi’s reversal, and given his government was caught flatfooted, why did he back down? Could be the sole reason was those protests. Could be the protests were in tandem with other factors such as strong advice from close advisors, and hard data on how costly the lockdowns of zero Covid including a declining economy (e. g. sharply diminished exports and retail sales), and parts of the population driven almost to the breaking point.
Whatever the constellation of reasons for Xi’s 180-degree turn, two things are inarguable. First, for a dictatorial leader to agree to such a drastic reversal in a policy with which he was so closely associated is exceedingly rare. Xi must, then, have been pushed very hard to do what he did. Second, for a dictatorial leader to accept such a humiliating defeat sends a signal. Xi today is less powerful than he was just a couple of months ago. Notwithstanding his recent crowning, there’s now a distinct chink in his totalitarian armor.