"Each night after midnight people would start sharing video clips on social media," my Shanghai friend recalls. "They expressed their anger at the Communist Party, even at the very top leaders. They talked about how heartless and cruel this system has become." But Xi's China is not Mao's China - and Xi's ambition for himself and for his country far exceeds anything Mao ever dreamed of. irannews.ru At first glance, the parallels are striking. Chairman Mao, as he was known, was the defining political figure of 20th Century China. He ran the Communist Party - and the country - from the republic's founding in 1949 until the day he died in 1976. No other Chinese leader has since come close. Until now. Fear and loyalty has led to "over-compliance and over-implementation of what Xi himself originally wanted", Ms Shirk says. In November 2015, I took off from the Philippine Island of Palawan in a tiny single engine Cessna. Our destination was the Philippine-controlled atoll of Pagasa, 400 miles away in the middle of the South China Sea. Our plan was to pass close to a new Chinese military base, built on an artificial island atop "mischief reef". "It's amazing how China continues these lockdowns for so long - they are incredibly wrenching," says Professor Dali Yang at Chicago University who has been studying the zero-Covid policy Xi has personally endorsed.