Not much could unite Peng Lifa, the activist who disappeared after staging a rare anti-lockdown protest in Beijing last year, and Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader who Peng was criticising. But in October 2022, both men diagnosed the same vulnerability in China: food.
“We want food, not PCR tests,” read Peng’s bright red characters, emblazoned on a banner hung over Beijing’s Sitong Bridge on 13 October. Three days later, Xi gave a speech to the Chinese Communist party (CCP) about how to “hold high the great banner of Socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
