China’s Dictatorial Political System Is The Root Cause Of Its Disastrous Covid Policies

Writer’s note: This piece was originally published in TheFederalist.com.

Photo by Yoav Aziz on Unsplash

Beijing abruptly abandoned its cruel and unpopular “zero Covid” policy in early December after it had wrecked China’s economy and caused the Chinese people countless miseries that eventually led to mass protests. China’s reopening has been a disaster. It does not validate the government’s prior “zero Covid” policy but illustrates everything wrong with the nation’s dictatorial political system.

On March 19, 2022, while Covid-19 spread worldwide like wildfire, China’s dictator Xi Jinping declared he had won the “people’s war” against the pandemic. Such a victory was meant to serve as indisputable evidence that China’s one-party political system is superior to the democracies of the West.

Xi’s declaration of victory was premature. After putting the Chinese people through almost three years of hell with mass testing, invasive contact tracing, prolonged lockdowns, forced quarantine, and eco…