Post-zero-COVID-19 Policy: Limits to Loyalty on the Horizon?

Abstract

The first serious test of Xi Jinping’s new state ideology based on organized loyalty came not long after the conclusion of the twentieth Party Congress. In November 2022, widespread social protests erupted across China against the harsh zero-COVID-19 policy. As a result, just after having achieved his goal to secure a third term as general secretary at the Congress, organized political loyalty, top-level design, and legitimacy incurred damage to the Party organization and Xi personally. The protests demonstrated that there are the limits to loyalty-based ideology, which is promulgated and implemented through “Leninist greed” and by the methodology of top-level design. Therefore, a challenge on the horizon concerns the limits to loyalty envisioned in Xi’s moral and ideological mission. Xi Jinping cannot take for granted that the demand of absolute political loyalty on Party members and a calculus of patriotic loyalty trumping political disloyalty from all citizens will pay off. In China’s post-socialist society, the urge to independently form identities will always threaten organized loyalty, as identity is key to loyalty. Individuals may therefore choose to develop disloyal moral careers, in opposition to a state-scripted moral career. Chinese youth, in particular, are fostering new identities and may resurface as critical citizens who challenge the new state ideology of Xi Jinping.