SinoInsight 1
On Feb. 14, Xi chaired a meeting of the central committee for deepening overall reform and “stressed the need to strengthen areas of weakness and close the loopholes exposed by the current epidemic,” according to a report by state mouthpiece Xinhua. Xi “highlighted speeding up establishing a law on biosecurity and stressed that “biosecurity should be included in the system of national security.”
Xi’s remarks on biosecurity hint at serious problems with laboratory safety in the PRC and pose somewhat of a challenge to the CCP narrative that the coronavirus originated naturally from a wet market in Wuhan City. Xi’s biosecurity remarks also add credibility to a so-called “fringe theory” that COVID-19 had emerged from a laboratory, specifically the P4 biosafety lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
On Feb. 15, the Chinese Communist Party ideological journal Qiushi published a speech by Xi Jinping that was delivered to the Politburo on Feb. 3. In his speech, Xi said that he “made a request for the prevention and control of the novel coronavirus epidemic situation” during a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee on Jan. 7, and proceeded to list what else he had done to deal with the epidemic.
Xi’s Qiushi speech drew the attention of China watchers because he essentially admitted to knowing about the coronavirus outbreak at least nearly two weeks before the central government acknowledged the epidemic on Jan. 20. It was also unprecedented for Qiushi to publish a Xi speech just two weeks after he had delivered it.
OUR TAKE
1. Xi’s Qiushi speech and biosecurity remarks raise several intriguing questions:
- Why did Xi acknowledge that he knew about the coronavirus and took steps to control the epidemic before the central government officially confirmed it?
- Some observers have suggested that Xi was trying to fault local officials and play the blame game. Even so, Xi should know that he cannot escape ultimate culpability for the PRC’s poor epidemic prevention and control work as Party “core” leader. This makes it more puzzling why Xi felt the need to list out what he had done up to that point to curb the epidemic since he would shoulder the bulk of the blame regardless.
- Some observers have suggested that Xi is playing the blame game now because he is confident that the epidemic is nearly under control and wants to start claiming credit. This hypothesis does not stack with the reality on the ground; while the CCP propaganda apparatus is indeed trying to sell the idea that the epidemic is petering out and the PRC has controlled the situation, local governments are still taking steps to prevent regular resumption of work and large numbers of medical staff from across the country are still being dispatched to Wuhan.
- There is growing interest in the U.S. and elsewhere about the origins of the coronavirus, as well as increasing skepticism about the CCP’s COVID-19 “natural” origins narrative. So why did Xi raise biosecurity at this critical juncture and fuel the controversial “man-made bioweapon” or “laboratory accident” theories?
- As a general rule of thumb, the CCP usually admits damaging information when it is trying to cover-up something more significant. What is Xi trying to hide?
- Why would Xi issue statements about the coronavirus that contain damaging information or allude to damaging information that, at least at first glance, would harm his and the Party’s credibility and image?
- The Trump administration often takes actions that are “politically incorrect” and has shown that it is unafraid to investigate events that one half of the political divide in America would deride as “conspiracy,” such as the origins of the Russian investigation. On Feb. 6, the Trump administration ordered the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy to “rapidly” investigate the origins of the virus in order to address both the current spread and “inform future outbreak preparation and better understand animal/human and environmental transmission aspects of coronaviruses.” Should the Wuhan epidemic get “out of hand” at a later date or the spread of COVID-19 outside China reach pandemic levels, the Trump administration will likely push Beijing hard for more information about the origins of the coronavirus to better fight the epidemic at home and abroad. And in pressuring Beijing, the Trump administration could demand that Xi be more forthcoming about the links between regime biosecurity and COVID-19, or the PRC should get ready to face tough U.S. sanctions. Did Xi already account for the aforementioned scenario before the publication of his recent coronavirus statements, and if so, why is Xi willing to take the risk?
2. In analyzing Xi’s Feb. 14 remarks on biosecurity and the Qiushi speech published on Feb. 15 together with coronavirus-related developments and signs of CCP factionalism in the prior weeks, as well as the political background of coronavirus research in the PRC, we reached the following conclusions:
- Xi and the central government could be laying the groundwork to shift the CCP’s official narrative on the origins of the coronavirus should the need arise.
- Xi’s political rivals are taking advantage of the epidemic to undermine and seriously challenge his leadership.
- Xi’s seemingly counterintuitive Qiushi speech and biosecurity remarks are part of a broader effort to counter his political opponents in the short- and long-term.
- The “you die, I live” factional struggle in the CCP elite has turned white-hot in recent weeks in large part due to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak. In examining various recent factionalism signs and the political background of coronavirus research in the PRC, it cannot be ruled out that there is a connection between the coronavirus’s origins and the CCP factional struggle.
3. We believe that Xi Jinping’s coronavirus statements have far-reaching political implications for himself and the PRC. Our full analysis will be presented in a forthcoming special report. SinoInsider subscribers will receive a free digital copy of the special report when it becomes available.
SinoInsight 2
On Feb. 17, a meeting of the PRC National People’s Congress Standing Committee and the chairman committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference announced a decision to postpone the Two Sessions meeting originally scheduled to commence in Beijing on March 3 (CPPCC) and March 5 (NPC).
Also on Feb. 17, Li Keqiang presided over a meeting of the central leading group on responding to the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak. The meeting proposed the promotion of “orderly resumption of work and production,” the implementation of a transport plan to get migrant workers back to work.
On Feb. 18, the PRC State Council held an executive meeting to discuss the issue of work and production resumption. The meeting said that there was a need to “grasp well” agricultural production in spring; that enterprises need to be stabilized to stabilize employment; that unnecessary work guarantees should be scrapped so that people can get back to work; and that workers should not be disallowed from going back to work in places where the epidemic situation is not severe or where there isn’t a high risk of the coronavirus spreading. The State Council also discussed work and production resumption matters during its previous meeting on Feb. 11.
On Feb. 19, the State Council held a press conference on its epidemic “joint prevention and control mechanism.” The press conference noted that the resumption of work and production for industrial enterprises above designated size in major economic provinces like Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Shanghai was now above 50 percent.
OUR TAKE
1. The PRC central government has been vigorously promoting the resumption of work and production. Likewise, CCP propaganda has recently started selling the notion that the epidemic is being brought under control and economic conditions are recovering.
Action, however, speaks louder than words. From the postponement of the Two Sessions to the continued deployment of large numbers of medical staff to Wuhan, it is clear that the CCP does not have the epidemic situation under control.
2. Over 5,000 delegates attend the Two Sessions in Beijing each year. With the exception of some grassroots NPC delegates, the majority of Two Sessions delegates are the Party’s elite (top town, county, and city officials; officials at the senior provincial level and up; prominent “red” businessmen, etc.). Delegates aside, the Two Sessions will be attended by security staff, journalists, foreign delegates, and other personnel, bringing the total number of attendees to over 10,000. And the Two Sessions attendees will be housed in various hotels and other accommodations in Beijing, where they will come into contact with service staff and be guarded by Beijing public security officers. All in all, holding the Two Sessions could bring into close contact as many as a million people from across China in a relatively small area—a scenario that is conducive for the coronavirus to spread. Given the elite status of the delegates, it would be disastrous for the CCP if Two Sessions delegates start infecting each other.
The fact that the CCP decided to postpone the Two Sessions indicates that the central government does not have confidence that it has the epidemic under control and hence will not risk the lives of the Party’s elite by convening a large gathering of people (making it easy for the coronavirus to spread) in the regime’s capital.
3. Another sign that the PRC does not have the epidemic under control and could even be seeing a worsening of the epidemic can be glimpsed from the constant deployment of medical staff to Wuhan.
On Feb. 13, the CCP Central Military Commission approved the sending of an additional 2,600 military medical staff to support the medical efforts in Wuhan, according to state mouthpiece Xinhua. To date, the People’s Liberation Army has officially dispatched more than 4,000 medical staff to Wuhan.
On Feb. 18, the CMC issued a document stating that military personnel who died while carrying out epidemic prevent and control work would be designated as “martyrs.” Under PRC law, the family members of persons designated as “martyrs” can get access to preferential treatment.
On Feb. 19, Xinhua reported that over 30,000 military personnel across the country have supported epidemic control and prevention efforts in Wuhan. Also, there was at the time 11,000 medical professionals involved in intensive care medical work in Wuhan, or close to 10 percent of the PRC’s medical intensive care manpower.
4. According to data released by the PRC, the number of new confirmed cases of COVID-19 increased seven times on Feb. 12, while the number of new deaths increased by 1.6 times. Then between Feb. 13 to Feb. 18, the number of new confirmed cases suddenly decreased by 65.6 percent (5,090 cases to 1,749 cases) while the number of new deaths decreased by 30 percent (2,420 deaths to 1,693 deaths). After the PRC’s National Health Commission issued a new trial diagnostic criteria on Feb. 19, the number of new confirmed cases and deaths again dropped sharply, particularly when compared with the previous day (394 cases, or a decrease of 77.5 percent from a day ago; 349 deaths, or a 79.4 percent decrease from a day ago).
The sudden drop in COVID-19 confirmed cases and deaths coincide with the central government’s push to resume work and production across the country. Based on our understanding of CCP characteristics and operations, we have reason to suspect that the “weakening” of the epidemic has more to do with the health authorities exercising “political correctness” rather than an actual improvement in the epidemic situation.
The CCP could soon find that “political correctness” can only deceive for so long. Based on various news reports, anecdotal accounts on Chinese social media, and other information channels, many companies, including some large enterprises, have seen COVID-19 outbreaks on their premises after workers returned from the extended Spring Festival vacation on Feb. 10. The central government’s push to resume work and production entails getting workers back to factories and increases the risk of the epidemic spreading more fiercely.
5. The PRC central government is willing to put more Chinese people’s lives at risk by rushing them back to work while the epidemic is far from being contained because not doing so would seriously endanger the Chinese economy and regime security.
The CCP’s worries are best summed up in a Feb. 11 article on the resumption of work and production by Huang Qifan, the former Chongqing mayor and deputy chairman of the NPC’s finance and economic committee. Huang wrote that the impact of the coronavirus in disrupting supply chains in China is “much greater than the impact of Sino-U.S. trade friction.” Supply chain disruption will cause companies to transfer or substitute mainland supply chains, and once that process takes place, “the 30-year foundation of some manufacturing industries will be lost” and those industries will find it “very difficult” to recover those supply chains. “What’s frightening is that when the epidemic is gone, the factories will also be gone,” Huang wrote. “That is even more frightening than the epidemic!”
6. The coronavirus epidemic has placed the CCP in a Catch-22 situation. Because the Party has tied its political legitimacy to delivering economic performance and regime survival comes first, the central government has to prioritize the resumption of work and production over the welfare of the Chinese people. Rushing people back to work, however, greatly increases the chances of the epidemic worsening, a return to mass quarantine, and an accelerated turning of popular sentiment against the regime.
The central government has decided that getting people working again is the priority, but whether or not it can fully implement this policy is uncertain. Local officials who are concerned that a worsening of the epidemic in their area would affect their political career would be less inclined to comply fully with the central government’s orders and could even find novel ways to keep people quarantined rather than risk allowing them to get infected in a workplace outbreak.
Most migrant workers face a lose-lose situation. If they don’t go back to work, they will not be able to feed themselves and will starve. But if they return to work, they risk getting infected and dying from the coronavirus.
7. Given that official PRC figures on the coronavirus are unreliable, a better way to gauge whether or not the authorities have the epidemic under control is to observe political signs. Thus, it can be presumed that the PRC has more or less controlled the epidemic situation when the CCP decides that the time has come to convene the Two Sessions.
