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The Chinese government initially mishandled the new coronavirus epidemic. Local authorities in Wuhan – the epicentre of the outbreak – concealed critical information from the public even after medical professionals sounded the alarm. Dr Li Wenliang, who was among the first to warn Chinese authorities about the danger of COVID-19, in late December, was subsequently interrogated and silenced by local police. He died of the illness on February 7.

The crisis also showed how tenuous the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) control over information has become and highlighted the latent power of Chinese civil society.

Mishandling of the Crisis

The number of grieving relatives has swelled. Ordinary residents have complained of being turned away from multiple hospitals. The Chinese authorities are clamping down as grieving relatives, along with activists, press the ruling Communist Party for an accounting of what went wrong in Wuhan.

Lawyers were warned not to file suits against the government. The police interrogated bereaved family members, who connected with others like them online. Volunteers who tried to thwart the state’s censorship apparatus by preserving reports about the outbreak disappeared.

Some aggrieved residents pressed ahead despite the government clampdown. Tan Jun, a civil servant in Yichang, a city in Hubei Province, became the first person to publicly attempt to sue the authorities over their response to the outbreak. With China’s judiciary tightly controlled by the central government, it was unclear whether Tan would get his day in court.

The crackdown underscores the party’s fear that any attempt to dwell on what happened in Wuhan, or to hold officials responsible, will undermine the state’s narrative that only China’s authoritarian system saved the country from a devastating health crisis.

Public Criticism

There has also been a spate or writings against Xi. Chinese realty tycoon Ren Zhiqiang, an outspoken maverick and former chief of Beijing Huayuan Group, a state-owned developer, wrote an opinion piece crucifying the top leader. Ren called Xi a “clown” and likened him to the emperor in the famous story by Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen. Ren was held at a secret prison in a suburb in Beijing and that he may be locked up for no less than 15 years as he has been a recidivist, relentlessly attacking Xi.

There was another open letter circulating suggesting convening an extraordinary plenum of the Politburo to reflect on “Xi’s wrongs” since taking office and decide if he should step down as president, party chief and commander of the military. Chen Ping, a publisher and founder of the Hong Kong-based SunTV network, shared it on WeChat, according to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Radio Taiwan International.

Zhang Xuezhong, the constitutional scholar was taken away on 12 May after posting an open letter calling for political reform in China, was allowed to return home after questioning by the authorities.

Strongman in Charge

Under Xi, correcting policy mistakes has proved to be difficult, since reversing decisions made personally by the strongman would undercut his image of infallibility. Xi’s demand for loyalty has also stifled debate and deterred dissent within the CCP.

For these reasons, the party lacks the flexibility needed to avoid and reverse future missteps in its confrontation with the United States. The result is likely to be growing disunity within the regime. It is nearly impossible to remove a strongman in a one-party regime because of his tight control over the military and the security forces. In the years ahead, Xi may come to rely on purges more than he already does, further heightening tensions and distrust among the ruling elites.

The Dangers of Slower Growth

By cutting China off from the United States’ vast market and sophisticated technology, Washington can greatly reduce the potential growth of China’s power. Since the Chinese economy today is less dependent on exports as an engine of growth-exports in 2018 accounted for 19.5 percent of GDP, down from 32.6 percent in 2008 – decoupling may not depress China’s economic growth as much as its proponents have hoped. But as their standard of living stalls, middle-class Chinese may turn against the party.

As the economy weakens, the CCP may have to contend with the erosion of popular support resulting from a falling or stagnant standard of living. In the post-Mao era, the CCP has relied heavily on economic over performance to sustain its legitimacy. Generations born after the Cultural Revolution have experienced steadily rising living standards. A prolonged period of mediocre economic performance could severely reduce the level of popular support for the CCP, as ordinary Chinese grapple with rising unemployment and an inadequate social safety net.

 In such an adverse economic environment, signs of social unrest, such as riots, mass protests, and strikes, will become more common. The deepest threat to the regime’s stability will come from the Chinese middle class.

An economic slowdown would also disrupt the CCP’s patronage structure, the perks and favors that the government provides to cronies and collaborators. Should a dramatic slowdown occur, the Chinese government will most likely find itself confronting greater resistance in the country’s restive periphery, especially in Tibet and Xinjiang, which contain China’s most vocal ethnic minorities, and in Hong Kong, which was British territory until 1997 and retains a different system of governance with far more civil liberties.

Should the party resort to overly harsh responses to assert its control, as is likely to be the case, the country will incur international criticism and harsh new sanctions. The escalation of human rights violations in China would also help push Europe closer to the United States.

Patriotism as Shield

Recriminations from abroad, including calls to make China pay for the pandemic that began there, have triggered defensiveness on the part of many Chinese. As China tames the coronavirus epidemic now ravaging other countries, its success is giving rise to an increasingly strident blend of patriotism, nationalism and xenophobia, at a pitch many say has not been seen in decades. Xi will probably beat the drums of Chinese nationalism to counter the United States. But, Xi is unlikely to embrace this strategy. It runs against his deeply held ideological views.

Perhaps nowhere has xenophobia manifested itself more strongly than in Guangzhou, a manufacturing hub with a large African population. There are signs that the nationalism already threatens to create a backlash that could undermine China’s economic and diplomatic status.

Instead, Xi will probably beat the drums of Chinese nationalism to counter the United States. Ever since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests-which shook the party to its core and resulted in a government crackdown on dissent-the CCP has ceaselessly exploited nationalist sentiment to shore up its legitimacy. But nationalism could eventually make it harder for the party to switch to a more flexible strategy, since taking a vigorous anti-American stance will lock in conflict and constrain Beijing’s policy options. The party would then have to turn to social control and political repression.

Power Struggle

Mounting dissatisfaction within the regime could motivate senior members to organize a palace coup to replace Xi. The party, however, has adopted sophisticated coup-proofing techniques: the General Office of the Central Committee monitors communication among members of the committee, the only body that could conceivably remove Xi.

Another possible scenario is a crisis that creates a split among China’s top elites, which in turn paralyzes the regime’s fearsome repressive apparatus. But this scenario is unlikely to materialize, since the party has invested heavily in surveillance and information control and has developed effective methods to suppress mass protests.

The most likely scenario is a succession struggle that would occur if Xi were to pass away or resign owing to infirmity. End of strongman rule produces a weak interim leader. It is unlikely that Xi’s hard authoritarianism would survive the end of his rule.

In the best-case scenario, the party may succeed in transforming itself into a “kinder, gentler” regime, one that endorses economic and political reforms and seeks a geopolitical reconciliation with the United States.

In the worst-case scenario, deep institutional rot, inept leadership, and the mobilization of anti-regime movements could very well cause a hard landing.

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In the last seven years, that system has been dismantled and replaced by a qualitatively different regime-one marked by a high degree of ideological rigidity, punitive policies toward ethnic minorities and political dissenters at home, and an impulsive foreign policy embodied by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a trillion-dollar infrastructure program with dubious economic potential that has aroused intense suspicion in the West. The centralization of power under Xi has created new fragilities and has exposed the party to greater risks.

A brittleness and insecurity lies beneath the surface of Xi Jinping’s, and Beijing’s, assertions of solidity and strength. Although middle-class discontent, ethnic resistance, and pro-democracy protests will not force Xi out of power, such pervasive malaise would undoubtedly further erode his authority and cast doubts on his capacity to govern effectively.

The United States has limited means of influencing China’s closed political system, but the diplomatic, economic, and military pressure that Washington can bring to bear on Beijing will put Xi and the CCP he leads under enormous strain.

Chinese leaders have put considerable thought into the lessons of the Cold War and of the Soviet collapse. Ironically, Beijing may nevertheless be repeating some of the most consequential mistakes of the Soviet regime.

In 2018, Xi decided to abolish presidential term limits, signaling his intention to stay in power indefinitely. Since taking power in 2012, Xi has replaced collective leadership with strongman rule. He has indulged in heavy-handed purges, ousting prominent party officials under the guise of an anti-corruption drive.

China’s ruling elites maintained peace by sharing the spoils of governance. Such a regime was by no means perfect. Corruption was pervasive, and the government often delayed critical decisions and missed valuable opportunities. But the regime that preceded Xi’s centralization had one distinct advantage: a built-in propensity for pragmatism and caution.

Xi has suppressed protests in Hong Kong, arrested hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists, and imposed the tightest media censorship of the post-Mao era.  His government has constructed “reeducation” camps in Xinjiang, where it has incarcerated more than a million Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities.

And it has centralized economic and political decision-making, pouring government resources into state-owned enterprises and honing its surveillance technologies.

Yet all together, these measures have made the CCP weaker: the growth of state-owned enterprises distorts the economy, and surveillance fuels resistance. The spread of the novel coronavirus has only deepened the Chinese people’s dissatisfaction with their government.

If Xi continues on this trajectory, eroding the foundations of China’s economic and political power and monopolizing responsibility and control, he will expose the CCP to cataclysmic change.

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