The sensible thing for India to do is to keep buying Russian crude, set up a BRICS Re to offer reinsurance to those who insure the safe passage of Russian crude without price caps to wherever it is welcome, and to keep engaging both sides in the Ukraine war
The protests have spread to over 25 cities and over 80 universities, totaling over 50 since the last week of November when nearly a dozen residents were charred to death at Urumqi in Xinjiang in a locked-down high-rise building that caught fire. China witnessed “mass incidents” periodically after the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. According to official estimates, over 5500 such incidents were reported in 1991, rising continuously to over 87,000 in 2005 and to 1,80,000 in 2010. However, China’s Premier has discontinued providing such statistics anymore.
China witnessed unprecedented protests last month, a first since the massive protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The current upsurge — against the excessive intrusion of the party-state in the lives of hundreds of millions of people who are subjected to arbitrary lockdowns, strict border controls, food shortages, unemployment, debilitating quarantine procedures, intensive surveillance, misuse of authority, and enormous hardships — is spontaneous, rapid and inclusive. Stringent Covid policies benefited certain business interests of the pharmaceutical and health industry at the cost of the social sector.
The latest Indian Ocean Forum is another way to challenge Indian influence and presence in the Indian Ocean. This is not China’s first attempt to corner India in its backyard. With the onset of Covid-19, Beijing has shaped multiple initiatives with other South Asian nations, excluding India, and has attempted to institutionalize them. These initiatives have focussed on post-pandemic recovery, enhancing connectivity, emergency supplies reserve, poverty alleviation, and e-commerce cooperation.
The Chinese Communist Party would recognize that it would be prudent to revisit the policies but given how much of Xi’s personal prestige is invested in this policy, there won’t be any question of changing track completely, which actually is the need of the hour. Recent protests in China when thousands took to the streets in several cities calling for an end to Covid lockdowns, with some even demanding Xi Jinping’s resignation are remarkable not only for their boldness but also for what they say about the mood of the country’s citizens.
Lockdowns for prolonged periods in different parts of China pursuant to the ‘Zero Covid’ policy have raised the levels of frustration and crossed limits of tolerance.
The 20th Communist Party Congress in China signaled a total centralization of powers in the person of Xi Jinping