China faces political challenges as Covid death toll rises

For two years, the Communist Party of China has imposed an expensive regime of strict border quarantines, sudden lockdowns and mass digital tracking for a single goal: zero Covid-19 cases. And Beijing points to the strategy's previous successes — including just two coronavirus-related deaths reported for the entire year 2021 — to buff its claims of superiority over Western governments. "No effort should be spared to attend to every case, save every patient and truly respect the value and dignity of every human life," Chinese leader Xi Jinping said at a global health summit last year. He has explicitly reiterated…