News! News! Read all about it. World cup shock: DEMOCRACY 3 CHINA 0. 

In recent days cities in China have been in uproar about the continuing Covid lockdowns. Violent demonstrations have taken place throughout China. Freedom and democracy are being demanded. Chairman Xi Jinping’s resignation is being called for. 

It is the football World Cup, ironically being held in that most undemocratic of places, Qatar, that is taking the plaudits. In the boiling temperatures of that desert country, the massed ranks of hysterical fans in their fetid tribute kit would not normally be a joyful sight to you or I, but to China’s youngsters, it represents the cool breeze of freedom.

The sight of stadiums full of fans from around the world hugging, kissing, dancing and screaming without a centimetre of safe distancing in sight and not a face mask to be seen, was too much for China’s youth. In Beijing, peaceful demonstrations against lockdown were held at the prestigious Tsinghua University. Shanghai also caught the freedom virus. Protests were similarly sparked in Chengdu, Xi’an and the city of Wuhan from where the virus originally sprang – probably as a result of botched security in a Chinese laboratory. 

Social video posts from Wuhan show violent encounters with police and damage done to gates and barriers. The Chinese government has denied these claims. But then it has also denied claims that it has begun editing out football footage when tv cameras pan across Qatar’s stadiums. Whatever happened to China’s love of the masses? Surely somebody in the politburo remembers Mao Zedong’s words; ‘The masses are the real heroes, while we ourselves are often childish and ignorant.’ 

There have also been riots in the north-western city of Urumqi. Here the death of 10 people in a tower block fire stoked local resentment at a lockdown which was blamed for hindering their rescue.

Last week China hit a daily record for the year of 28,000 new cases. The rise of infection was seen not only in Beijing but also in the major manufacturing hub of Guangzhou and the sprawling south-western metropolis of Chongqing. Despite Xi Jinping’s draconian efforts the Covid virus has gone rogue. Clearly the politburo failed to make clear to those pesky little Covid critters that their entry into China was banned. Talk about unwanted immigration. Covid now seems as endemic in China as it is in the rest of the world.  

It must be asked why China has persisted with lockdown policies that proved so ineffective in the west. The experiences of Sweden and Florida, places where anti-Covid procedures were only lightly implemented, showed that they fared no worse than those of a more totalitarian bent. Those who pursued draconian policies longest, like New Zealand’s sanctimonious, buck-toothed prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, are now paying the price. Her popularity rating has fallen below 30 percent.

The suspicion must be that China has continued with its draconian lockdowns for one of two reasons. Either its bureaucracy is so sclerotic that it does not know how to change direction, or it prefers a state in which the freedom of expression of the individual is muted. It should be remembered that one of the chief fears of Xi Jinping and his ideological sidekick on the standing committee of the politburo, Wang Huning, is that China, like the West, is being undermined by the decadence of social media and popular culture (e.g. androgenous boybands). Social control, an increasing feature of Emperor Xi’s China, may also be useful as the country goes through the trauma of a collapsing property market.  

At the 20th Party Congress last month, the emergence of a Politburo Standing Committee comprising a clean sweep of Xi Jinping loyalists demonstrated that he has a firm grip on his party; but the question now is, does he have a firm grip on his country?