President Xi Jinping will tout China’s achievements in fighting COVID-19 at an awards ceremony to laud “outstanding individuals and organizations” that analysts said was aimed at repairing the reputation of the country that was ground zero of the global pandemic.

Xi is expected to deliver a keynote speech at the ceremony, due to be held on Tuesday morning at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Awardees will include China’s leading COVID-19 expert Zhong Nanshan, traditional Chinese medicine expert Zhang Boli, head of Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital Zhang Dingyu, and military medical scientist Chen Wei, according to Chinese state media.

The Chinese Communist Party was looking to consolidate its hold on power and increase the loyalty of Chinese citizens, as well as promoting its values abroad, said Hui Ching, research director at the Hong Kong Zhi Ming Institute.

The anti-epidemic awards ceremony was in line with the tradition of celebrating China’s founding on Oct. 1, Hui said, noting that the event seemed to focus on the party’s achievement rather than that of Xi personally.

China has been blamed for its lack of transparency in the early stages of epidemic control, and it will be difficult for China to redeem itself unless its leaders show a “genuine” desire to reflect and improve, he added.

The country will also need to put a stop to the poaching of wildlife, and the associated hygiene and environmental problems that are widely seen to be the cause of COVID-19, Hui said.

China faces “foreign bitterness” and wants to leverage its relatively successful recovery in the international arena, analysts told Agence France-Presse.

“Beijing wants the narrative to be: We handled it, we can help you handle it and (hopefully) we’re the first to have a vaccine that works,” said Kelsey Broderick, Asia analyst with Eurasia Group.

“That’s really the only way China can come out ahead of the idea that a wet market in Wuhan started this crisis.”

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