Xi, two years without leaving the Chinese trench against the virus

This Monday marks two years since the last state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, which has raised doubts that his absence from international forums could affect the status of a China that, with its borders closed due to the pandemic, still isolated from the outside.

Xi, who spoke remotely at the World Economic Forum in Davos, traveled abroad for the last time on January 17, 2020 to meet in Myanmar with the then State Councilor, Aung San Suu Kyi, now in prison after the coup. with which the military ended the Burmese democratic transition on February 1, 2021.

There, Xi also saw General Min Aung Hlaing, one of the promoters of the coup, and left the country with dozens of agreements linked to his star project of the New Silk Roads.

Five days after his return, China decreed the first great confinement of the pandemic to stop the outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan (center), which remained isolated from the rest of the country for more than two months.

Beijing imposed a relentless policy of zero tolerance against COVID-19 that, although it has managed to leave its death toll at less than 5,000 -according to official statistics-, it meant the practically total closure of its borders, as well as confinements and restrictions on the mobility wherever it detected outbreaks.

Regardless of the effect of this strategy on the economy of the “world factory” or on the global logistics jam, China faces this isolation amid greater hostility at the diplomatic level, with reproaches from the West for Xi’s absences in the G20 and COP26 summits last fall.

“These absences do not reflect a loss of power or influence, but rather the Chinese obsession with security,” says Spanish expert Xulio Ríos, who does believe that the lack of interaction hinders “China’s ability to build trust.”

China, “in magazine status”

Xi delegated diplomacy to trusted emissaries such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who in 2021 maintained an extensive internal and external agenda, especially with representatives of developing countries. In the past week alone, Wang has hosted half a dozen foreign ministers from the Middle East.

As the world grapples with the pandemic following the arrival of the omicron variant, China, with more than 86% of the population vaccinated, shows no signs of altering its ‘COVID zero’: “Each option has its costs, in economic terms and also in human lives. It is difficult to predict, but if something is foreseeable, it is a tightening of the measures to control the outbreaks”, comments Ríos.

“The country must be in a state of review. They are aware that at any moment the situation can get out of control and that keeps them up at night,” says the analyst, who cites the political importance that Beijing gives to the next Winter Games, but also to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party (PCCh). ) in October, which will decide whether Xi continues to lead the country for a third term.

The internal agenda is “defining” for the officials, according to the researcher: “They do not want to run risks that tarnish the image of the CCP as a guarantee in the response to the virus. Now they are trying to defend that their option is better to protect people in contrast to the data on infections and deaths in other ‘systemic rivals’”, he indicates.

“This strategy can work inside, but outside they do not forget the failures of the first moments of the pandemic, now seasoned with allusions to other issues that seriously affect their international image, such as the complaints of human rights abuses in the region of Xinjiang or the loss of freedoms in Hong Kong”, concludes the academic.

From “xiplomacy” to diplomacy in the cloud

Xi paid his first state visit in 2013 to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, who may become the first leader the Chinese leader has met in person since the outbreak of the pandemic.

Putin will attend the opening of the Games in Beijing, which U.S, UK or Australia will not send representatives in a diplomatic boycott in response to abuses in Xinjiang, denied by China.

Far away are pictures like those of Xi drinking pints of beer in the United Kingdom accompanied by the then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, chatting with Costa Rican peasants, taking a “selfi” with Kun Agüero at the Manchester City stadium or visiting a school in Tacoma (USA.).

Those visits forged what as of 2017 the state media called “Xiplomacy”, a communicative offensive that used the alleged charisma of the president to improve the country’s image abroad.

Now, the official propaganda calls Xi’s video conferences “diplomacy in the cloud”, with 79 phone calls or virtual attendance at 40 events in 2021, in addition to hundreds of speeches, letters and video messages.

Chinese officials assert that the country’s diplomacy has not stopped “for a moment” despite the COVID-19, with the defense of “multilateralism” and “mutually beneficial cooperation” as the most repeated concepts during these two years.