Their methods are particularly draconian, but China has managed it. To my knowledge without the mass starvation or collapse of their medical systems alluded by your comment. Probably they couldn't go to Wendy's for a bit though.
I'm in Melbourne, Australia, which locked down hard to suppress the virus in 2020, then for several more months attempting to suppress it again in 2021.
Since everyone had had the chance to be vaccinated by Nov last year, restrictions have been lifted and the virus has been allowed to spread, and almost everyone is much happier living with the virus than continuing to be locked down.
What is China going to do? Keep locking everyone down every few months forever?
For myself, having a young child at daycare means getting exposed to infections and being sick with something different almost every week, which is of course annoying but it's a part of life. I had covid for the second time last week (must have been BA.5 as it's dominant here), and it was no big deal; I felt a bit off for under 48 hours. It certainly felt like my body knew what to do with it having first encountered an earlier omicron variant in Feb.
How is shutting down all of society for weeks/months at a time preferable to that?
Starvation is not an exaggerated description of some of the Shanghai lockdown experiences:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/03/shanghai-food-shortages...
What are some examples of lapses of judgement to support the claim that he "let the outbreak get out of control "?
Shanghai health officials tried to control the outbreak with testing and neighbourhood-wide lockdowns; in hindsight they should have done the full lockdown earlier.
People screaming and begging for food and basic supplies may disagree