JohnRawls wrote: Go some more discontent and opposition because of Covid problems. Nobody liked the lockdown even the softcore ones in the West for less time compared to China. China did more rough lockdowns and more in time. This causes all sorts of problems for the people, for the economy and so on.
This isn't true, and get backs to what I mean about Chinese decentralization. I personally was in China during covid so I can attest to that.
Beijing told cities: "we are setting a target for you on covid transmission" but outside of rules for international travel, did not control covid policy beyond that.
Certain cities did have very bad covid responses and egregious lockdowns at times - Shanghai's city government was notably and famously over reactive.
For us in Shandong, our covid lockdowns lasted two months, were over by April 2020, and life returned to normal - bars and gyms and theaters were back open by mid April, and we switched to a system of case tracking using QR codes and individual isolation, a system which proved so popular it became the pilot for almost all Covid lockdowns in mainland China by 2021.
I could go in more detail, and did at the time - but the point is talking shout a "China covid policy" falls back to a way of thinking that isn't reflective of how China actually operates. There wasn't a "China covid policy". There were hundreds of city, province, or regional policies.
JohnRawls wrote: That is a good question what power Xi actually wields over the whole party.
Xi holds power over the makeup of the Politburo and the Standing Committee. This gives him a lot of latitude in deciding the direction of Chinese policy but this doesn't translate to authority or influence in how it's implemented. We can talk about the Mao system of governance and norms, but this is one norm Xi hasn't broken.
Beyond that, you seem to be using "corruption" as synonymous with "patronage" which I think could be clearer. Nonetheless, Xi's hold is largely limited to national offices, not lower level party organization. My wife's father hates Xi but is nonetheless a party member and former municipal party leader - in any society, what the national party is doing is often very far removed from how local party politics plays out, and China is no different.