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Speaker 1: When it comes to Chinese President Shi Jingping. I'm sure

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Speaker 1: you've heard enough about how the West thinks about she.

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Speaker 1: But in the past two years, democracies have become stronger,

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Speaker 1: not weaker. Autocracy has grown weaker, not stronger. Name me

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Speaker 1: a world leader who changed places with Hi Jianping. Name

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Speaker 1: me one, Name me one. That impression seems to be settled,

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Speaker 1: maybe even strengthened during the three years of Chinese draconian

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Speaker 1: COVID zero policy. This week marks the first anniversary of

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Speaker 1: Shanghai's lockdown, where more than twenty five million residents were

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Speaker 1: confined at home for two months, some without access to

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Speaker 1: even food and medicine at times. By colleague Colin Murphy

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Speaker 1: on how President She's credibility fairs at home and what

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Speaker 1: that means for his leadership going forward column, My understanding

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Speaker 1: is you've been covering China for a bit more than

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Speaker 1: a decade, Is that correct? Yeah, that's about right. I

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Speaker 1: started off in Shanghai basically, where I was covering automotive.

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Speaker 1: Now I'm covering government out of Beijing, so it's taken

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Speaker 1: me to many different parts of the country. So I've

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Speaker 1: been around, so call um, we know it's the one

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Speaker 1: year anniversary of Shanghai's lockdown. But we also know that

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Speaker 1: China just reversed the COVID zero policy this January. Things

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Speaker 1: seem to be bouncing back to well, quote unquote normal.

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Speaker 1: So why are we talking about Chief's credibility right now? Right? So,

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Speaker 1: I think the key point is that so many factors

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Speaker 1: are pointing to a more powerful see. I mean, he's

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Speaker 1: become head of his party, he's become the president of

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Speaker 1: the country. But all of this is happening at a

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Speaker 1: time when China has faced some of the biggest problems

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Speaker 1: it has seen in DECA AIDS, perhaps chief among which

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Speaker 1: is the COVID zero policy and how that was handled,

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Speaker 1: and of course that has all of the hallmarks of

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Speaker 1: she himself. So when that strategy sort of unravels and

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Speaker 1: the government does a U turn on that, China is

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Speaker 1: starting to unravel at zero COVID policy. But instead of

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Speaker 1: crowds out celebrating, this is how reopening is going in China.

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Speaker 1: Close shops, empty streets, people avoiding each other because for

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Speaker 1: the first time, of course, a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: going to look at the person who has been proposing

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Speaker 1: this policy and asking does he have what it takes

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Speaker 1: to actually run the country and take care of his people. Right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So how do people feel about she and his administration

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Speaker 1: on the ground based on your reporting, Well, there's many

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Speaker 1: different perspectives on this, obviously, depending on what part of

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Speaker 1: the country, who you talk to, demographics, so onnest the forth.

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Speaker 1: But I would say an increasing number of people are

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Speaker 1: now questioning the ability of the Chinese government to look

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Speaker 1: after them, especially when it comes to the economy. Broadly speaking,

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Speaker 1: the Chinese Communist Party has this so called social contract

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Speaker 1: with Chinese people, whereby the understanding, even though it's not explicit,

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Speaker 1: is okay, you give up political power to us, and

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Speaker 1: we'll take care of you economically. Now, in the past

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Speaker 1: three years, specifically under COVID, not only have people's lives

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Speaker 1: been put on hold, in many cases, they've got worse.

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Speaker 1: So that's one of the main areas where people are

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Speaker 1: worried about what's going to happen going forward, Right, And

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Speaker 1: I think the protests against COVID zero last year in

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Speaker 1: Shanghai really captured how fast sentiment changed. We know it

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Speaker 1: was sparked by this deadly fire in Urumuchi, that's the

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Speaker 1: capital of Sinjian, a COVID lockdown had reportedly delayed that

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Speaker 1: rescue service and then hampered the victim's efforts to flee.

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Speaker 1: After that, people in Shanghai just gathered to mourn the victims,

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Speaker 1: but it quickly turned into something else. Can you just

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Speaker 1: quickly describe the scenes from those protests? Right? So on

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Speaker 1: that evening, protesters gathered in Woolabuoti Road in Shanghai, and

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Speaker 1: it quickly evolved into a protest where at first people

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Speaker 1: were asking for the leader to apologize and shouting things

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Speaker 1: like yes to freedom, no to lockdown, but that very

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Speaker 1: quickly turned into something more. Soon they were calling out

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Speaker 1: things like down with che jing Ping. So this is

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Speaker 1: quite unusual and quite rare and quite a sudden thing.

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Speaker 1: It was sudden, and correct me if I'm wrong here.

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Speaker 1: But we don't usually see Chinese people participate or even

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Speaker 1: talk about politics, let alone express their frustrations their views

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Speaker 1: against the precedent directly. So why is that specifically the

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Speaker 1: case with Chi jing Ping? I think one of the

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Speaker 1: main reasons is because che jing Ping has put himself

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Speaker 1: front and center of everything for she himself, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's been a decade long period in power and at

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Speaker 1: the outset. He was definitely heralded amongst many people and popular,

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Speaker 1: mainly due to the things such as his pushed for

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Speaker 1: anti corruption. General Secretary Jasping opened the meeting calling to

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Speaker 1: intense of our laws and regulations that pushed forward China's

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Speaker 1: battle against corruption. But as time went by, it became

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Speaker 1: very clear that the controls in the Chinese society were

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Speaker 1: getting tighter and tighter. We saw civil society, for example,

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Speaker 1: practically wiped out. And then we were told how the

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Speaker 1: tech sector, how the entrepreneurs in the tech sector should

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Speaker 1: behave For two years, China has been cracking down on

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Speaker 1: the power of its biggest tech companies. This has spanned

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Speaker 1: sectors e commerce. Parents were told, you know, this is

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Speaker 1: how you should educate your children. China is adding what

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Speaker 1: it calls sijin Ping thought to the national curriculum. Education

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Speaker 1: Ministry says it's meant to establish Marxist beliefs in students

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Speaker 1: and that sort of cut back on the after hours

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Speaker 1: education system. So across a lot of facets of life,

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Speaker 1: he was directly coming into people's lives. And you know,

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Speaker 1: whereas traditionally there might be other players that he could

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Speaker 1: the leader could point to and blame. That's more and

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Speaker 1: more not the case in China, and everything is centering

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Speaker 1: on this one person, and that has the advantages of,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's super powerful, he can make any decision

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Speaker 1: without much opposition. But it also means that when things

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Speaker 1: go wrong, that he becomes a very easily identifiable target.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's part of what's going on here,

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Speaker 1: So call him. I think we've established that there is

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Speaker 1: a credibility deficit here, but we also need to point

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Speaker 1: out and remember, China is massive, it's diverse. I guess

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Speaker 1: the key question now is how widespread really it's sentiment

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Speaker 1: against streating pain, especially given it's really so hard to

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Speaker 1: measure people to dissatisfaction. It's virtually impossible to measure in

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Speaker 1: a scientific and accurate way. That's because there are no

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Speaker 1: reliable surveys in China, and the country, as you mentioned,

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Speaker 1: is massive. It's very diverse, even in terms of ethnicity,

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Speaker 1: but also in demographics. So to be able to reach

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Speaker 1: out and conclusively say this is how the country feels

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Speaker 1: about she is very, very difficult. But having said that,

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Speaker 1: my colleagues and myself have reached out extensively throughout the

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Speaker 1: country and interviewed as many different types of people as possible,

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Speaker 1: and based on that, I think we can say that

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Speaker 1: discontent is definitely more marked. That does not mean that

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Speaker 1: everybody everywhere is unhappy with she, but it does suggest

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Speaker 1: more people and those people are becoming more vocal and

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Speaker 1: willing to share in as far as they can their dissatisfaction.

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Speaker 1: That's interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about some of these specific conversations you've had on the

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Speaker 1: ground during those reporting trips. So, I think one of

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Speaker 1: the most memorable encounters I had was at a coffee shop,

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Speaker 1: an outdoor coffee shop on the corner of Amfulu and

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Speaker 1: Wollamuochilu in Shanghai. These particular names are important because that's

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Speaker 1: basically the location where we had the outbreak of protests

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Speaker 1: in November. So I met somebody there, one of my

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Speaker 1: sources that we were chatting, and she explained to me

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Speaker 1: that basically the whole way she looked at the role

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Speaker 1: of government and the performance of the Chinese government had

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Speaker 1: shifted considerably during the past year by the way we

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Speaker 1: treated her voice to protect her identity. Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: first of all, I never really like followed what like

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Speaker 1: the government is doing because you kind of feel like

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Speaker 1: you don't feel like things are under control. In particular,

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Speaker 1: she was saying that, you know, in the past, the

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Speaker 1: government was almost invisible, that she didn't really have to

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Speaker 1: worry about them. They were there behind the scenes, working away,

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Speaker 1: creating policies, making life better for everybody, including her. But

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Speaker 1: then with the lockdown, she saw the horrors of the

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Speaker 1: actual day to day ruling and decisions made by government

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Speaker 1: on all levels, and that basically shocked her. She said

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Speaker 1: she had now seen the inner workings of the government

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Speaker 1: and she doesn't know if she could ever really trust

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Speaker 1: them again. And are they really as capable as they

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Speaker 1: had led people to believe in the past. Oh, maybe

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Speaker 1: they're not. So they don't know what they're doing. Maybe,

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Speaker 1: like I think, are not so like planned out how

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Speaker 1: they pass Yeah, okay, wow, So we know there's frustration.

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Speaker 1: We know there are a lot of questions that are

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Speaker 1: being raised, and some of these frustrations are simmering and boiling.

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Speaker 1: There's still protests across the country, even after the government

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Speaker 1: of course walked away from from COVID zero. Well what

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Speaker 1: do we make of all of this? What do we

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Speaker 1: take away from this? I think a takeaway in the

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Speaker 1: short term is that, you know, the brain drain is

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Speaker 1: a real thing for China. The brightest and the best

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Speaker 1: are leaving, whether they be expatriates, but also Chinese of course,

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Speaker 1: who want to make their lives elsewhere. Longer term, I

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Speaker 1: don't think it means that she is completely off the hook.

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Speaker 1: You know, just because this COVID zero situation has passed

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Speaker 1: does not mean that there will not be a polite

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Speaker 1: consequences for the actions going forward. And I do think

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Speaker 1: people will be looking at him, including his own political party,

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Speaker 1: but the amount of power that he's managed to concentrate

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Speaker 1: in his hands at this moment means that it's unlikely

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Speaker 1: that he will come under direct threat in the foreseeable future.

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Speaker 1: Another consequence could be if this dissatisfaction is not addressed,

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Speaker 1: then where can it find an outlet? Increasingly the outlets

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Speaker 1: that people have to express their dissatisfaction are becoming less

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Speaker 1: and less so, for example, media has been censored more

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Speaker 1: and more, civil society has been all but eliminated. So

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Speaker 1: where do people go with have troubles going forward? One possibility,

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Speaker 1: and it's a frightening one, could be a rise in nationalism.

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Speaker 1: Could this be the way we see frustration be invented

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Speaker 1: going forward, as more people look at foreign countries, among

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Speaker 1: them the US, as a target for their angst, their

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Speaker 1: and their anger. Callin Murphy, thank you so much. Thank you,