China recently tweaked its contentious "COVID zero" policy that seeks to stamp out coronavirus infections, easing flight bans and quarantine times.
Though markets have reacted ebulliently, the policy will not disappear anytime soon given its association with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Analysts keep wrongly predicting the imminent end of COVID zero because they look at the policy from an economic rather than political standpoint. The former matters, but is secondary to the latter in the era of Xi, China’s most powerful leader since Mao Zedong.
Xi made a fateful decision early in the pandemic: He personally took ownership of China’s battle against the coronavirus, intensely politicizing a public health issue. In February 2020, he called on China to wage “a people’s war” against the “demon virus” that was then ravaging the city of Wuhan.