May be having widespread political unrest and they are using this to control it?🤔
That’s got to be the major motivation for this. One thing’s for sure, whatever the CCP is saying, they’re lying. Maybe some fraction of their policy actually is directed at some sort of COVID management, but there’s no way that’s the primary reason.
We saw Xi Jinping publicly remove one of his key rivals from the party congress just a few weeks ago, and the West decided “oh, I guess Xi has consolidated his power fully now”.
But these public displays of raw power don’t look like he’s confident that he’s got everything buttoned up. Maybe they’re in even worse economic trouble than people in the west have been thinking.
What’s next? A move on Taiwan?