The disagreement between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang has become more obvious than ever. With the Chinese economy currently in turmoil and at huge risk, Xi insists on pushing his “zero-COVID” policy at all costs, while Li calls for stabilizing the economy at all costs.
On May 25, Li convened a national televised and telephone conference on the economy, which was attended by 100,000 local Chinese communist officials from across the country, with the theme of “stabilizing the economy at a macroscopic level and stabilizing employment,” according to Chinese media.
Li admitted at the conference that the current economic situation is worse than in 2020 when the pandemic broke out: “In March and April, indicators such as employment, industrial production, electricity consumption, freight transport, and others have fallen significantly. In some aspects, the difficulties [we face] now, to a certain extent, are even greater than when the economy was hurt by the severe epidemic in 2020.”…