As vaccination use spreads and the COVID-19 pandemic is slowly brought under control, China seems to have been more resilient to the pandemic when compared to the West, at least superficially.
Throughout 2020, China adeptly pivoted away from its initial missteps in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, with the government accruing ever more support from its citizens in spite of the draconian measures it used to suppress the spread of the virus.
A recent survey funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research illustrated this, finding that “Chinese citizens hold very high levels of satisfaction with the performance of their national government during the pandemic.” This echoes pre-pandemic surveys that show high confidence in the Communist Party’s leadership and the one-party political system among ordinary citizens.