Xi Jinping Declares Victory Over Pandemic Ahead of the Two Sessions, Secured Military Obedience First

Party leader Xi Jinping applauds during the opening of the 3rd Session of the 12th National People's Congress in Beijing, China, on March 5, 2015. Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

News Analysis

After China’s military authorities ordered the armed forces to follow the command of Military Commission Chairman Xi Jinping in all operations, Xi declared “victory in the fight against the epidemic” at a meeting of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee. In contrast, the last time Xi announced a victory against COVID in 2020, it was at a huge celebration party.

Meetings of the Politburo Standing Committee are usually held once a week to deal with the daily work of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee and make decisions on major issues. It is rare for Chinese leaders to make major announcements like the “victory in the fight against the epidemic” at such small-scale meetings, which would be more appropriately announced at a Politburo meeting attended by at least 24 Politburo members.

The CCP’s constitution states that “Politburo meetings should have thorough discussions before making decisions on  issues.”  Xi’s approach seems to have circumvented the “discussions” required by the constitution. In fact, he hasn’t convened a Politburo meeting since the beginning of 2023, while during the same period last year, he convened two such meetings in January and February.

Xi in a Precarious Situation

Why didn’t Xi hold a grand ceremony to announce “victory in the fight against the epidemic,” which would be a more appropriate setting?

Ms. Guo Jun, editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language Epoch Times, said at the Feb. 16 Elite Forum program that Xi handled the announcement as he did to make a definitive conclusion of “total victory” for his epidemic control work before the Two Sessions, and thus deny his political opponents the opportunity to attack him.

“Xi Jinping used to claim that China’s overall epidemic control work was under his ‘personal instructions’ from the very beginning. The announcement of this major ‘victory’ after a long period of silence is a kind of declaration. He meant to say, as the two sessions will be held soon, no one shall pursue the responsibility of the epidemic control work anymore. Whoever wants to pursue it, he will fight to the death as he has set this tone within the top CCP body,” Guo said.

The CCP’s Two Sessions are scheduled to take place in Beijing on March 5. Xi announced his victory in leading the pandemic control work 17 days before the Two Sessions start.

China Experts point out this year’s session is full of dangers for Xi Jinping.

Chinese pro-democracy activist Wei Jingsheng also shared similar views at the Elite Forum. With so many deaths occuring during the three years of the pandemic, some delegates may force Xi to give an explanation, just as former CCP leader Mao Zedong faced criticism at the Seven Thousand Cadres Conference in January 1962, he said.

The Seven Thousand Cadres Conference was held from Jan. 11 to Feb. 7, 1962, after the miserable failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward movement, which led to a three-year famine throughout China from 1959 to 1961. An estimated 30 million people died of starvation in those three years. The main theme of the conference was to review Mao’s responsibility in the failure of the Great Leap Forward movement, after which Mao handed over power and retired, leaving Liu Shaoqi, the No. 2 man in the Party, as the leader of the CCP.

The Chinese authorities never revealed the true death toll that occurred during those three years. Similarly, the CCP has heavily underreported the COVID-19 death toll in the past three years.

The official figures released by the CCP claim that as of Feb. 9 of this year, the cumulative number of COVID-19 deaths in China was over 83,000. However, the New York Times reported on Feb. 16 that four unrelated academic teams had come up with similar estimates indicating that the epidemic may have killed between 1 million and 1.5 million people in China in the past two months alone.

As the CCP has been covering up the truth and blatantly lying to the public, Chinese people created a catchphrase this year: “They don’t care if you believe it or not, they only care if you are obedient or not.”

Wei believes that Xi’s victory declaration was an attempt to “point at a deer and call it a horse”  and to use authority to suppress and silence people—including his political opponents.

“It is possible that everyone is scared and will choose to remain silent, but the end result is hard to tell,” Wei said.

Military Support

The Chinese military authorities suddenly issued an order demanding that the entire army be absolutely loyal to Xi Jinping, according to a report by Xinhua News Agency on Feb. 13. This implies Xi wanted to secure military obedience a few days before he declared victory over the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Xinhua report stated that the CCP Central Military Commission (CMC) required all divisions of the People’s Liberation Army to strengthen the “CMC Chairman Responsibility System,” and to “achieve absolute loyalty, absolute purity, and absolute reliability.”

The core of the CMC Chairman Responsibility System is to guarantee that the highest leadership authority and command authority belong to the CMC Chairman.

Political commentator Chen Pokong said on his self-media platform on Feb. 16 that the CMC directive reflected Xi’s deep insecurity.

“Now the whole army is no longer the Party’s guard, but Xi Jinping’s private army,” Chen said.

In addition, Xi’s extreme Zero-COVID policy has depleted government fiscal revenues at different levels. The draconian lockdown measures triggered the White Paper Revolution in late November, and the drying up of government funds led to health insurance cuts for retirees, which eventually sparked the Grey Hair Revolution in several Chinese cities in February this year when thousands of seniors took to the street to protest.

Protesters in Beijing hold up blank white pieces of paper to protest against censorship and China’s strict zero-COVID measures, on Nov. 27, 2022. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Wei further pointed out that for more than a decade, the Xi administration has been sending many CCP officials to prison on charges of corruption. As a result, there are CCP officials at all levels who harbor resentment toward Xi.

“Xi Jinping will likely face the same crisis in the upcoming Two Sessions, as Mao did at the 7,000-member Conference,” Wei said.