Xi Moves to Stop Shanghai Covid Rage From Sweeping Across China
- Anti-government criticism outpaces censors on social media
- Xi says Covid Zero can’t be relaxed: ‘Persistence is victory’
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President Xi Jinping now has a bigger problem than stopping Covid-19 infections: Quelling escalating anger in Shanghai before it spreads across China, creating a wider crisis of confidence in the Communist Party.
The lockdown in China’s main financial hub, now in its third week, has spawned some of the most anti-government criticism in years on the country’s tightly controlled social media. The latest trending post to get censored featured an 82-year-old man pleading for medication with a local party official who said he could offer only traditional Chinese remedies.