China protests could usher in 'more authoritarian' Xi era, analyst says - CNBC

The eruption over the weekend of protests in China could mark the start of a "more authoritarian" era in President Xi Jinping's rule, one analyst warned Monday, as Beijing appeared to reach a critical crossroads in its zero-Covid strategy.

The protests present one of the most outward rejections of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) authority in decades, and a clear affront to Xi's signature "zero-Covid" policy, TS Lombard's chief China economist told CNBC Monday.

While Green said it was important not to "over extrapolate" the weekend's events, he added that it could pile the pressure on the Chinese leader to clamp down on dissent.

"In the short term, the Covid policy will only be fine-tuned without moving the needle," Bruce Pang, chief economist and head of research for Greater China at JLL, said Monday.