National Day; Pew research on views toward China and Xi; Wang Qishan; Taiwan

I hope those of you in China were able to have a nice vacation. Today’s newsletter is long, good for weekend catchup reading. It will be back to the normal schedule Monday.

The data so far from the holiday week are off from last year but most reports seem to consider them relatively positive evidence of China’s continued recovery from the pandemic slowdown. It is impressive that China can have hundreds of millions pf people traveling with no signs of renewed outbreaks of COVID-19, then again they may need to wait a few more days before being confident there are no new outbreaks.

Earlier this week Pew Research released a new report that indicates views of China and Xi have become much more negative in 14 advanced economies. The report Unfavorable Views of China Reach Historic Highs in Many Countries begins with:

Views of China have grown more negative in recent years across many advanced economies, and unfavorable opinion has soared over the past year, a new 14-country Pew Research Cent…