Mr Xi has turned China’s one-party state into his own one-man act. For three years he tried to dam up COVID-19 with draconian restrictions on Chinese society, against expert health advice. It was chiefly to aid his biggest boast: that China’s authoritarian state could look after its people better than feckless Western democracies. This is all before the test of a Chinese New Year travel superspreading event comes later this month. Instead, he was stung into an abrupt reversal of the policy by unprecedented public protests in November, and the country has struggled since to cope with the about-turn. The…