Xi visits Wuhan in sign China sees virus is under control

Bloomberg

Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the coronavirus epicentre of Wuhan for the first time since the disease emerged, a trip intended to project confidence that his government has managed to stem its spread domestically.
Xi arrived on Tuesday morning in the capital of Hubei province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. He visited Huoshenshan Hospital, one of the two dedicated facilities built specially to treat virus patients. Photos published by state media showed Xi wearing a mask while speaking to patients via video conference and addressing medical staff outside the hospital.
Wuhan, where the disease first emerged in December, has been quarantined since January 23, in what some people see as a heavy-handed approach following earlier failures to act quickly enough to stem the spread. Xi’s visit comes after a steady drop in infections, with just 19 new cases Tuesday, and a slight easing of restrictions within Hubei to allow some people to travel within the province.
A personal visit to Wuhan by the nation’s top leader has been anticipated as a potential sign that the Communist Party believed it had the situation under control. Xi’s government has seen a rare outpouring of public anger over both its initial response to the crisis and the muzzling of whistle-blowing medical professionals, shaking confidence in the ruling party.
Premier Li Keqiang had been dispatched to Wuhan by Xi in late January to boost confidence among local residents.
“Xi’s visit suggests that the authorities view the situation in Wuhan has having been put under control, and a turning point has been secured,” said Gu Su, a professor of philosophy and law at Nanjing University. “His visit could help to allay the public anger to some extent, but his visit came more than 50 days after the outbreak, in stark contrast to former top leaders who’d usually visit within a week of a crisis taking place.”

Slowly Dropping
There were signs Tuesday that Chinese officials are relaxing some of the strict measures in Hubei, with the government saying it will issue “green codes” to residents free from coronavirus, allowing people from lower-risk areas to travel within the province.
The municipal government of Qianjiang, a city in the Hubei, said in a statement it will resume all public transportation and business production in the “near future.”
Going forward, the rescheduling of the country’s biggest annual legislative meeting, which saw a rare postponement amid the outbreak, could signal a return to normal. Putting it back on the calendar “means the end of the outbreak for Chinese leaders,” Gu said.
Xi previously took responsibility for Wuhan’s lockdown. He told China’s most powerful leaders in a speech last month that he had “continuously given verbal and written instructions” since early January and personally ordered the quarantine of about 60 million people in Hubei province, according to a transcript published by top Communist Party publication the Qiushi Journal.
China announced on Tuesday that there had been just 17 new infections in Wuhan — with none in the rest of Hubei — and 17 more deaths in the entire province. Hubei’s health commission has confirmed a total of more than 67,700 cases and over 3,000 deaths since the disease emerged in December.
The virus has killed more than 3,900 people and infected more than 113,000 worldwide, with almost 81,000 of them in China. Despite slowing down in the mainland, it’s beginning to spread more rapidly across the globe, including the US, Europe and the Middle East.

In Command
In an effort to mitigate domestic discontent, China’s state media apparatus has in recent weeks doubled down on efforts to praise Xi’s leadership of the crisis. Through glowing commentaries and by seizing on early containment missteps by the US and other Western countries to which the virus has now spread, it has sought to validate its own hard-line approach.
Xi “is in command of the overall situation,” state broadcaster China Central Television said over the weekend.

“He has shown great foresight and insight, and is ready to make a firm decision,” it said, praising his “outstanding leadership,” “extraordinary wisdom” and “heroic courage.”
Still, many in China remain skeptical after weeks of criticism that the government didn’t act early enough. Social media users refuse to back down in demanding answers on the fate of Li Wenliang, the 34-year-old Wuhan ophthalmologist who was reprimanded by authorities for attempting to raise the alarm about the disease before succumbing to it.
To assuage those concerns, Xi has shaken up the personnel in charge of Hubei. Last month, he replaced provincial party chief Jiang Chaoliang with Ying Yong, the mayor of Shanghai. Wuhan’s party chief was also removed.