Xi in Shanxi; Blinken-Wang chat; Holiday war films; Anti-monopoly

We are heading into the Lunar New Year holiday week. There will be a weekly discussion thread tomorrow, then next week the newsletter will not be in your inbox every day as things should be quite slow. I plan to publish 1-2 issues, depending on what is going on.

Today’s Essential Eight:

1. Outbreaks

2. Blinken-Wang Yi call, comments on Ukraine

3. Xi’s New Year’s visit to Shanxi

4. More signs anti-monopoly work to intensify

5. PRC government really wants to delay UN report on Xinjiang

6. Evergrande

7. EU going to the WTO over PRC-Lithuania fight

8. Holiday movies

Earlier today Sinocism published China Media Project’s China’s Political Discourse December 2021: China’s Democracy. The discussion of “whole-process democracy” is quite interesting:

“Whole-process democracy” was first raised by president Xi in 2019 during a consultation session on a draft law at the Gubei Civic Center in Shanghai’s Changning District. “We are following a path of socialist political development with Chinese characteristics,” Xi said during th…