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[W]e asked Anne Stevenson-Yang. She has lived in China for more than 25 years and is one of the most renowned Western experts on the country. [...]

The situation in China looks pretty disorganized after the abrupt lifting of the Zero-Covid policy. What are you hearing from your contacts on the ground?

There isn't a lot of information coming out of China, which makes it very hard to figure out what's going on. We never have any information about domestic politics, and now there is such a scarcity of information generally that I can only connect very few data points. But I have to say I think there has been some kind of quiet internal revolt against Xi Jinping's personal rule.

What do you specifically mean by that?

Going into the 20th Party Congress, everybody expected that there would be a Standing Committee balanced between Xi allies and others. As we know, that didn't happen. They all turned out to be Xi allies. But then, the protests broke out, and for the very first time I ever heard of in China, at least since 1949, people generally criticized the government and the CCP and demanded that Xi step down. That's truly new and highly dangerous for the party.

How did China's national leadership perceive Xi Jinping's power grab?

Think of all the ways in which Xi must have offended the blooded elites: Xi seems to have inserted his own slate of «selectees». The former president was escorted out of the big party meeting in front of cameras and in front of his own son, and no one even looked at him, much less stood up to assist. There had been a couple of arrests and harsh sentences for very high-ranking officials. That's why I think that these recent developments must have been a bridge too far for Xi's supporters.

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