NEW DELHI: Regime survival dictates that China’s President Xi Jinping is unlikely to lose his head because of his government’s handling of the Coronavirus. More likely some provincial bigwigs will be got rid of, says Prof Raj Verma, who teaches international studies at Huaqiao University in Xiamen, Fujian province of China. In a chat with StratNews Global, Prof. Verma warns that China could take a big financial hit, certainly more than the $40 billion loss caused by the SARS virus of 2003. It could get worse if the Coronavirus spreads to other parts of China including Beijing or Shanghai where majority of the population lives. He says the crisis caused by the virus has underscored major deficiencies in the country’s top-down model of governance but it may not persuade the Communist Party to change how things are run.
