zero Covid in China

 Zero-Covid was supposed to prove China's supremacy. How did it all go so wrong for Xi Jinping?

By Nectar Gan, CNN

• Updated 11:29 PM EST, Tue December 27, 2022

A hazmat-suited transit officer stands at a Covid checkpoint in Shanghai on March 28, as the city enters a two-month lockdown.

Editor's Note: (A version of this story appeared in CNN's Meanwhile in China newsletter, a three-times-a-week update exploring what you need to know about the country's rise and how it impacts the world. Sign up here.)

Hong Kong(CNN)2022 was supposed to be a triumphant year for China and its leader Xi Jinping, as he began his second decade in power with a pledge to restore the nation to greatness.

Instead, China had its most difficult year under Xi's rule as it reeled from his costly zero-Covid policy -- from months of overzealous enforcement that crushed the economy and stoked historic public discontent, to a wholesale abandonment so abrupt that left a fragile health system scrambling to cope with an explosion of cases.