Is Chinese President Xi Jinping seriously ill?
Chinese president Xi Jinping has not left the country for 21 months now. Xi’s last visit outside the country was in Mayanmar on 17th January 2020, it was just days before ordering the lockdown of Wuhan. There have been growing concerns regarding president Xi Jinping not setting foot outside the country for so many months at a stretch. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the President of China used to visit 14 countries on average annually with 34 days being abroad. Multiple views are being expressed over the matter.
In October 2020 Xi Jinping was seen coughing, struggling to speak through the coughing while delivering a 50-minute speech. A video of it went viral and there have been speculations about his health. If it wasn’t for the time of Covid the issue wouldn’t go viral and not create this much concern about the President of China, but so many world leaders were infected with the Covid-19 virus at that time, and people are trying to make sense of the very little data available to them about Xi Jinping and his health status. The authorities of China didn’t release any statement regarding the speculations to clear the air.After that, the president was seen struggling to take support from a chair to stand in some other video which also became viral and added more to the speculation of the president being seriously ill.
Xi Jinping either skipped, postponed or attended online most of his international meetings in these 21 months. He also attend the G20 summit remotely this year and failed to attend the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference even virtually. President Xi Jinping has come up with an explanation for skipping COP26. Beijing says “the conference organizers did not provide the video link method” for joining the summit. This explanation can suggest that the absence of Xi might be intentional and not because of illness or technical difficulties. The United States president Joe Biden said that "It's been a big mistake, quite frankly, for China not showing up. The rest of the world looked at China and said 'what value are they providing?'," regarding the Chinese president skipping the COP26. As the country didn't cite any illness or health concerns as the reason for not attending Conference there is no evidence to suggest that Xi Jinping skip the meeting due to illness. It can be just a reflection of China’s lack of urgency in addressing the climate action program or just to its dominant nature to the world by showing they don't have to participate. China is also implementing its own projects and policies to find the climate change, so the absence in this meeting can be more to do with the international relations of China less with the health conditions of the president.
If Xi were to leave China he would either need to other to COVID protocols upon return to being or risk criticism for placing himself above the rules that apply to everyone else. the president complying with the same rules as the general population can be a morale booster, and it might be sending a strong message about their policies. As the authorities suggested to the people to avoid Any unimportant travel, attending these meetings physically might not be the most important task for China, or making a controversy By not staying in quarantine for 14 days.
Some media outlets are using the fact that the president might be busy in internal politics 'cause Xi Jinping has to extend his tenure for another five years even though they got rid of the limit for president tenure last year, Xi still needs to work on extending his tenure for the next five years. On November 16, 2021, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping had their first virtual meeting regarding the tensions in Taiwan, there were no indications of physical illness from Xi Jinping in this meeting.
This type of behaviour towards international summits from a country and its president can also mean that they no longer feel that they international support because of the increased domestic support and domestic control. Some other countries also skipped the COP26, Russian President Vladimir Putin didn't attend both the G20 and COP26, another world leader like Russia also skipping the summits can indicate that this can be a move to show their dissatisfaction regarding the meeting to the world. China is also working towards being more self-sufficient and self-reliant, this move can be a poster of their efforts of achieving some milestones in that process.
Not attending these important summits can cost some effort to China regarding its ambition to position itself as an alternative world leader. This behaviour is eliminating or reducing the opportunity of engagement between the top leadership of the world. But China hasn't given up its diplomacy with other countries due to this no travel of the president outside the country. China has been playing an anchor role in negotiations with the Taliban along with Russia since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August Jinping had also attended several conference calls with the outgoing chancellor of Germany and President of France Emmanuel Macron and the Prime Minister of Britain Boris Johnson.
Even though there are some observations where it showed some signs of illness or physical weakness, no official sources mentioned anything about the condition of Xi Jinping's health, whether is sick or not. the videos which went viral is not strong scientific evidence to suggest any serious illness, all of it can be a light physical weakness or simply bad throat, as far as open-source information is concerned there is no evidence to strongly suggest that Xi Jinping is severely ill or facing any physical illness. as stated above, we can derive many reasons for the president not travelling outside the country but being seriously ill is not on the top of the list. Even with China trying to maintain a zero-tolerance policy for Covid-19 cases, With recent developments in Beijing and some other cities, there is a great chance this trend can continue for a much longer time, and with the new variant of the virus present in more than 30 countries, there's a good chance of China also detecting the new Omricon variant in near future. because of these uncertain times protecting President Xi Jinping from getting infected by the Covid-19 virus while travelling outside the country will be a challenge to the security forces, it can be a gamble that China doesn't want to take. The causes for the president not travelling outside the country will be more clearer once the international travel situation is back to normalcy, if the president still doesn't travel outside the country even after the international travel restrictions are back to normal then you can get a more narrowed down perspective on the reasons behind President Xi Jinping not travelling outside the country.
Pic Courtsey-https://rsf.org/en/predator/xi-jinping
(The views expressed are those of the author and do nto represent views fo CESCUBE.)
