The two top Chinese leaders, President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, have been conspicuously absent from public events as several crises unfolded across mainland China this year.

Analysts say that Xi and Li should make more public appearances to stabilize the situation and raise public morale.

In the past, it was not uncommon for state leaders to visit scenes of natural disasters to comfort victims. The most memorable example was then premier Wen Jiabao, who took several trips to the south in January 2008 to coordinate relief aid for snowstorm victims and even apologized to the public at Changsha railway station, where tens of thousands of travellers were stranded. In May that year, Wen made yet another high-profile trip, personally visiting the earthquake-devastated Sichuan province to help with relief efforts.

By contrast, Xi and Li have hardly been seen stepping up to the plate in one crisis after another. During the early weeks of the coronavirus outbreak, authorities on Jan. 8 confirmed Wuhan was the source of the infections and shut down the city on the 23rd, but Li did not visit medical workers on ground zero until the 27th, while Xi made his appearance only on March 10.

Since then, north-eastern China had been hit by a plague of locusts as well as an oil truck explosion in Wenling city of Zhejiang province that killed at least 19 people. Most recently, Beijing has come under a second wave of the deadly pandemic, while bloody clashes that broke out at the disputed Sino-Indian border in the Himalayas are the most severe in 45 years.

Meanwhile, floods destroyed villages in the south. Chongqing suffered the strongest flood since 1940, refuelling public concerns that the Three Gorges Dam might collapse, endangering the lives of 600 million people living along the Yangtze River.

In all these crises, Xi and Li were nowhere to be seen on-site, only appearing at events via video.

According to state media, Chinese leaders had rarely shown up at public events since the second wave of infections in Beijing became apparent on June 11. Xi spoke at an expert seminar in Beijing on June 2 and visited Ningxia between June 8 and 10. He then joined video conferences on June 17 about China-African relations, and on June 22 about Sino-European ties. Xi also presented himself at a video conference against drugs on the 23rd, though he had yet to issue any instructions about the floods.

Li, on the other hand, visited cities in Shandong Province on June 1 and 2, and appeared at a Beijing ceremony on June 15. The rest of his appearances were transmitted using video links.

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