The day-to-day reality for many people is the hardship produced by the Party in the name of Zero Covid. And so, the Party will be the focus of their anger. Unless Xi’s hand is forced, disaster beckons. Omicron will continue to spread at a terrific rate, the government will continue to shut down cities, disrupting lives and producing personal tragedies like the unfortunate Xi’an mother, and the people will only get angrier.

On April 13th, a statement to the effect that the US has the world’s worst human rights record began trending on Weibo (the Party, of course, chooses what is trending and what is not). But netizens started using the hashtag to mock the government for the Shanghai crisis (sample post: “China is the most human rights deprived and authoritarian country in the world”). For a few hours, censors appeared to be sleeping on the job, and Weibo rapidly became host to a torrent of criticism and derision. As one commenter noted, “This is the true voice of the people. Let’s commemorate tonight.” Around 4am the Internet police got out of bed and proceeded to delete everything.

We’d been given a glimpse, however, of the China that simmers beneath the surface. Not the dull entity the Party invokes in its official statements—the mindless, homogenous “nation” whose “feelings” are perpetually hurt by this or that international slight—but the real Chinese people. They are an altogether more cynical, unpredictable, and spirited prospect, and in many ways the natural enemy of the Communist Party.