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Opinion | How China’s coronavirus crisis exposes the Achilles’ heel of Communist Party power
- The party’s initial mishandling of the outbreak has eroded support among China’s urban middle class
- The brief but intense eruption of public criticism is a taste of how such missteps can threaten the social contract on which the party’s legitimacy is built
Reading Time:4 minutes
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It may seem preposterous to suggest that the outbreak of the new coronavirus, Covid-19, has imperilled the rule of the Communist Party of China, especially at a time when the government’s aggressive containment efforts seem to be working. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the political implications of China’s biggest public health crisis in recent history.
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According to a New York Times analysis, at least 760 million Chinese, or more than half the country’s population, are under varying degrees of residential lockdown. This has had serious individual and aggregate consequences, from a young boy remaining home alone for days after witnessing his grandfather’s death to a significant economic slowdown.
But it seems to have contributed to a dramatic fall in new infections outside Wuhan, where the outbreak began, to low single digits.
Even as China’s leaders tout their progress in containing the virus, they are showing signs of stress. Like elites in other autocracies, they feel the most politically vulnerable during crises.
They know that, when popular fear and frustration is elevated, even minor missteps could cost them dearly and lead to severe challenges to their power.
And “frustration” is putting it mildly. The Chinese public is well and truly outraged over the authorities’ early efforts to suppress information about the new virus, including the fact that it can be transmitted among humans.
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