5 years? China has been closing ever since the Olympics ended in...2008. Its been almost a decade now. Theory is they'll start opening up again in the run up to 2022...they can't really hold an Olympics while blocking all the major worldwide internet sites, too much face lost.

This definitely isn't just Xi's fault.

It's almost like having a single political party is a bad thing for a society or something.

Being limited to only 2 parties is fucking awful. I can't imagine how bad the USA would be if we were suddenly forced to just have one.

It would be exactly the same.