The coronavirus fight in China could influence the alignment of political forces in the country. Ineffective and unsuccessful measures to fight the epidemic may make Xi Jinping’s give up lifelong rule and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang resign.
The center of the disease outbreak is Wuhan, China’s fifth largest city, which the Chinese authorities have quarantined.
Wuhan’s new extraordinary mayor, Chen Yi-hsin, belongs to the Zhejiang Political Group who is gaining in its influence in China. This group is friendly to Chinese President Xi Jinping, the member of the Beijing clan.
The Zhejiang clan conflicts with a group of Hubei locals who control the province where the city of Wuhan is located. This conflict arose during the time of Zhou Enlai who eliminated the whole Hubei clan in 1931. Xi Jinping has headed the Zhejiang Group for 7 years. Later on he moved to Shanghai and became the General Secretary.
Eventually, the Zhejiang Group members held all high-ranking positions in Shanghai – starting from the secretary of the communist party to the vice-governors – and drove out the old Shanghai group members under Jiang Zemin. Shanghai locals support Deng Xiaoping’s policy. The Beijing residents support the left-wingers and neomaoism ideology.
As its member the Zhejiang Group has the Chinese Commerce Minister Zhong Shan who tied up a deal with the USA but lost to Vice Premier Liu He whom the White House sympathizes. Among the Zhejiang Group members are also a third of the governors of China, a third of the heads of parliamentary committees, a third of the heads of the Central Committee departments. Thus, the situation with Wuhan strategically challenges the Zhejiang Group. Its current domestic political goals are to weaken the Shanghai clan, join the new Politburo and appoint their prime minister.
The coronavirus situation is a challenge for the head of the State Council, Prime Minister Li Keqiang, the representative of the Shanghai group. He was appointed as a chief of the epidemic fight emergency headquarters. This is a big challenge for him. In case of his failure, he risks his career because he has been recently criticized by Xi Jinping and everybody saw him as a ‘lame duck’. De facto Wang Qishan (Vice-Chairman of the PRC) was the second person in the PRC. He was promoted politically after elimination of the SARS outbreak in Beijing in 2003 where he worked with Xi. That epidemic showed inefficient horizontal ties between ministries and regions.
Getting over the virus with minimal losses will be Xi’s one of the most important political victories during his rule and explain the best why he has consolidated power and derestricted the number of five-year terms for the head of the party and state positions.
As of now, the Wuhan authorities are the only who are being criticized for inefficient coronavirus fight.
In its behavior pattern in the national disasters’ reaction the population of China stays united until it turns out that the toll of victims could be less if not for corruption, theft and incompetent officials.
In case of the coronavirus fight failure, the situation may force the Chinese to reconsider the approach to Xi Jinping’s rule where China’s political elites were inclined to Xi’s lifelong rule.
