What China gets wrong
The pandemic, the economy and the war in Ukraine
IT IS OFTEN said that China’s government plans decades ahead, carefully playing the long game as democracies flip-flop and dither. But in Shanghai right now there is not much sign of strategic genius. Even as the rest of the world has reopened, 25m people are in a citywide lockdown, trapped in their apartments and facing food and medical shortages that not even China’s censors can cover up. The zero-covid policy has become a dead end from which the Communist Party has no quick exit.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “What China gets wrong”
From the April 16th 2022 edition
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