Opinion: Xi Jinping directly responsible for Covid lockdowns — according to his own words

By Yaruk

Dec 15, 2022 In a short video circulated on Twitter, Chinese leader Xi Jinping declares that during the COVID-19 pandemic, he personally issued all major instructions and decisions within the framework of China’s pandemic control measures. In his meeting with World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Xi reiterated that the Chinese government “attaches great importance to people’s health,” before stressing that he himself had personally directed and deployed the country’s pandemic prevention and control work—the policy known as “Zero COVID.” This insistence on personal leadership is striking, and not accidental. Across China, dissatisfaction with the Zero COVID policy has reached a breaking point. In many cities, residents endured lockdowns lasting more than 100 days, often without adequate food, medical care, or the ability to work. Frustration spilled into the streets as citizens protested, not merely against local officials, but against the very system that enforces such sweeping control. While ordinary people struggle to have their voices heard by higher authorities—by Xi himself and his governing team—Xi now proclaims that he has been leading the entire process from the beginning. That statement matters. If Xi personally commanded the pandemic response from day one, then the suffering, the economic devastation, and the deaths that resulted from rigid lockdowns are not bureaucratic mistakes. They are political choices. So what does Xi want now? In October 2022, Xi secured an unprecedented third term by reshaping the leadership of the Communist Party and consolidating power around himself. In doing so, he effectively positioned himself to rule for life. Chinese citizens, long wary of Xi’s expanding repression, understood what this meant: the closing of any remaining space for dissent, reform, or accountability. His re-enthronement only intensified public anger. The question now is whether Xi is attempting to turn that anger into a political weapon. Under the banner of pandemic control, the state gained extraordinary powers: mass surveillance, forced quarantines, digital tracking, arbitrary detention. In an authoritarian system where freedom of expression and freedom of the press barely exist, such tools are easily repurposed—not only to fight a virus, but to identify, isolate, and crush political opposition. Is COVID now an excuse to root out those who dare to oppose him? Those who challenge the Chinese Communist Party face severe consequences—prison, disappearance, even death. In that context, today’s protests carry grave risks. And yet, people still march. Why? Why do citizens take to the streets when they know the likely outcome? Because when a system denies every legal channel for complaint, protest becomes the last language left to the powerless. Xi may claim he personally led China through the pandemic. But in doing so, he has also personally tied himself to a policy that exposed the true nature of his rule: absolute control, enforced by fear, and maintained at any human cost. History will remember not only how China fought COVID—but how its leader chose to rule his people in the name of fighting it.