Outbreaks; US-China; UK-US warning on PRC threats; GSI; TikTok
Summary of today’s Essential Eight:
Outbreaks - It feels like several areas are again on the cusp of broader lockdowns, in pursuit of dynamic zero-Covid, which Xi endorsed again only a few days ago. Shanghai is especially worrisome, with reports of a number of communities locking down, and the political pressures around another outbreak. If you are Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang, having just survived the earlier Covid disaster, do you move slowly and softly or do you lockdown hard and fast if it looks like cases are spreading quickly? Shanghai so far has not said the new outbreaks are from the BA.5 subvariant, while both Xi’an and Beijing have said their cases are.
US-China - I am still hearing that there may be a Biden-Xi call in the near future, but I wonder what the US will give to the PRC to make it happen, as from the PRC side I believe the view is that the Biden Administration is increasingly desperate. It might help if the Biden Administration stopped negotiating against itse…