"Coronavirus cold 新冠感冒"; Weak economy and signals of support; More US tech controls; PRC-India

Summary of the Essential Eight:

1. Reopening - Zhong Nanshan was brought out again to calm nerves about Omicron and the sudden policy shift from “Dynamic zero-Covid” to what could be called “dynamic let it rip”. Zhong emphasized that most cases will be mild, and that the disease should now be called “coronavirus cold 新冠感冒”. While the PRC experts project confidence that most people will have no or only very mild illness, foreign experts continue to project much higher mortality in worst case scenarios. Let’s hope the PRC experts are correct.

2. Weak economy, signals of more policy support - The November data released Thursday are mostly bad, in another reminder of how much damage the Covid policies have been doing to the economy. The December data may be even worse given how many people are either sick and/or staying at home in these first weeks of the dynamic let it rip policy. Liu He made soothing promises of policy support to European executives, and Keith Zhai of the Wall Street Journal …