Leader’s arrival at the centre of the epidemic signals that Beijing believes the tide has turned in its fight against Covid-19

This article is more than 6 months old

This article is more than 6 months old

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, has visited Wuhan for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak began, a signal that the nation’s leadership believes its fight against the epidemic has been largely won.

According to the official state news agency Xinhua, Xi landed in Wuhan on Tuesday where he planned to “visit and express his regards” to frontline medical workers, military, community staff, grassroots party officials, volunteers, patients and residents.

Xi has been notably absent from the frontline of what has been the largest challenge to his presidency and tenure as head of the ruling Chinese Communist party. While issuing many statements and chairing high-profile work meetings on the government’s handling of the crisis, Xi’s appearances in public have been few, prompting questions about whether he would shift the blame for the crisis, which has caused widespread public anger.

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According to Xinhua, upon landing in Wuhan Xi went “straight” to Huoshenshan Hospital, an emergency facility built in response to the outbreak. Photos showed Xi addressing doctors by video link in a conference room. Other photos showed the Chinese president saluting a patient over video conference, greeting a row of doctors outside the hospital, and delivering a speech.

Victor Shih (@vshih2) Come on, Xi Jinping inspects Huoshenshan hospital via TV! While wearing a mask! pic.twitter.com/1KCuC9ol7k

The president’s visit comes as the reported number of new infections in China dropped to fewer than 100 in recent days, from around 2,000 three weeks ago. On Tuesday, China reported only 19 new cases, the smallest daily increase since the country began tracking data in January.

As of Monday, 3,136 people in China have died from the virus, with 17 additional deaths, all of which were in Wuhan.

“It is obvious that Xi could not have visited Wuhan earlier because the risk of him contracting the virus there was too high initially,” said Professor Zhang Ming of Renmin University. “He is there now to reap the harvest.”

Analysts said the visit was aimed at signalling to citizens that the worst has passed. Officials have been slowly trying to restart the paralysed economy and encourage businesses and factories to reopen.

“Xi is declaring China’s victory over the coronavirus,” said Carl Minzner, a China scholar and professor of law at Fordham Law School in New York. “This sends a powerful message to Chinese citizens that it is now safe to return to work. Beijing is desperately trying to restart China’s economy after freezing it in place for the past six weeks.”

While Chinese social media was flooded with state media reports hailing the visit, internet users were less impressed. “In the end, he went to Wuhan to make video calls,” one said on the discussion forum Douban.

“What kind of person travels so far to be on the ground and just watches videos?” another asked. A photoshopped version of Xi’s video conference showed him looking at an image of himself, a play on artist Nam June Paik’s TV Buddhas, was removed from the site.

On Tuesday, China’s Hubei province said it would begin using a smartphone system called Health Code, which assigns individuals a colour designating their level of risk for infecting others, in order to allow people to begin travelling.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Medical workers celebrate the shutting down of a temporary hospital for coronavirus patients in Wuhan. Photograph: Li Ke/EPA

Officials were studying plans to allow people in medium- or low-risk areas in the province to travel, according to the official Hubei Daily. Traffic restrictions and orders to stay inside have kept an estimated 56 million at home in Hubei for more than a month.

The last of more than a dozen temporary makeshift hospitals built to deal with the epidemic closed on Tuesday, according to the paper. Officials have also ordered all airports in the province to resume operations this week.

Play Video 0:34 Wuhan closes last makeshift coronavirus hospital as China's infection rate falls – video

China said 20 people had been killed over the weekend when a hotel in Fujian province, used partly as a quarantine centre, collapsed on 71 people inside. As of Tuesday morning, 10 people were still trapped inside.

Worldwide, more than 4,000 people have died and over 110,000 have been infected, with the majority of cases in China. As the number of cases spike outside mainland China, officials have taken more measures to prevent imported cases, with strict quarantines.

In Beijing, officials said they would section off part of Beijing Capital Airport for flights from virus-stricken countries so that passengers could be more thoroughly screened.

The news from China came as the rest of the world struggled to rein in the virus. On Monday night the Italian prime minister announced the entire country would be placed under lockdown.

Giuseppe Conte announced the drastic measures at an evening press conference, during which he told people to “stay at home” and banned all public gatherings.

“There is no more time. I will take responsibility for these measures. Our future is in our hands,” he said.

In Italy, Covid-19 has claimed at least 463 lives and infected 9,172 people in what is Europe’s worst outbreak.

Experts say the dramatic fall in cases in China, accompanied by spikes elsewhere, provide a propaganda opportunity for Beijing and a good backdrop for Xi’s visit.

“Party authorities will undoubtedly stress this point both at home and abroad, both to demonstrate the strengths of their one-party political system and as a tool to drown out discussion of how their own inaction and information controls helped fuel the epidemic spread in the first place,” said Minzner.

Chinese state media on Tuesday released a flurry of articles hailing Xi’s visit as evidence of his “constant attention” to the outbreak. “Xi personally commands the people’s war against the epidemic,” the Global Times reported, noting the number of meetings and phone calls with heads of state that Xi has held.

Xinhua said of Xi’s appearance in the city: “At a critical moment in the fight against the epidemic, general secretary Xi Jinping visited Wuhan.”