Chinese president Xi Jinping recently celebrated China’s coronavirus response in a New Year’s speech. He omitted that the Communist Party’s failures have led to the worst outbreak since the pandemic started.

Similar to the Chinese Communist Party, the Party promoted “red tourism” nationwide in October to commemorate the Party’s founding anniversary. A tour group that originated in Shanghai spread the Chinese coronavirus across much of northern China. It quickly spread to at most ten provinces. 

Although Chinese authorities have not confirmed the connection, an outbreak in Inner Mongolia preceded one in Xi’an (the capital of northern Shaanxi Province) that prompted authorities into locking down the 13 million-strong city on the day before Christmas Eve. The Nestorian Stel, one of the most significant artifacts of ancient Christianity, is located in Xi’an. It provides evidence that Christianity existed in China as far back as 635.

Fearful residents of Xi’an have started using social media to complain about authorities refusing to let them leave their homes to get food.

Xi, who did not play any public role in responding to the outbreaks (and there is no evidence to suggest he has done so), omitted to mention the dark atmosphere in China in his New Year’s Eve address. Xi claimed China spent 2021 “making confidence strides on the pathway toward the great revitalization of China’s nation” and painted a picture of a happy, disease-free year. Xi claimed that the world was celebrating China as the source country of the pandemic and its response.

“In my phone and virtual meetings with foreign heads and leaders of international organizations, I have often heard plaudits about China’s fight [Chinese Coronavirus]” Xi stated in the televised speech. “China has already provided more than 120 countries with two billion doses [Chinese Coronavirus] vaccines,” Xi said in the televised statement.

“Only through unity and solidarity can countries around the globe write a new chapter for building a community with a common future for mankind,” Xi stated.

Xi also applauded Chinese citizens who accepted China’s draconian coronavirus policies. He said “…[T]The whole nation remaining united in solid [Chinese Coronavirus] response” along with other purported accomplishments, which he claimed marked 2021 as a year of “much memorable Chinese voice, Chinese moments, and Chinese stories”.

Xi took more time in his speech to celebrate Chinese astronauts (“taikonauts”), and the anniversary of the Communist Party than to address the pandemic within China.

“On July 1, the Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding,” Xi recalled. Standing on the Tian’anmen Rostrum one could only marvel at this extraordinary journey taken by the major Party. It was a journey of Chinese Communists leading their people in their hundreds of millions in an unyielding fight against all challenges and obstacles, and scoring remarkable, epoch-making achievements over the last century.

Xi stated that the complete reunification and restoration of our motherland was a shared goal of people from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. “I hope all the children and grandchildren of China will work together to make a better future for our nation.

Xi’s tone toward Taiwan was much more conciliatory than his threats two years ago when he vowed, “Anyone who attempts split any region of China will perish with their bodies smashed, bones ground to powder.”

Xinhua, the state news agency, celebrated Xi’s failure to lead on Friday’s pandemic as “lighting the path forward” for the rest.