Bye bye Li Keqiang — Editor’s Note for Friday, March 11, 2022
A note for readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader,
Shanghai is closing schools and entertainment venues because of a COVID-19 case count in the double digits, which is about as many cases as you can find at the convenience store attached to my local gas station here in the U.S. But even this low number of cases is going to present an interesting test for the Chinese government, which has so far chosen to stick with its COVD-zero policies.
Chinese Premier Lǐ Kèqiáng 李克强 will step down from his post after this year, he said today at the closing of the Two Sessions political gathering “in response to a question about the accomplishments of his decade as China’s No. 2 official.” Here is a translation of Li’s final Two Sessions press conference.
However, Li’s boss, Xí Jìnpíng 习近平, is going to be with us for a very, very long time.
Our phrase of the week is Let he who tied the bell on the tiger take it off (解铃还须系铃人 jiě líng hái xū xì líng rén), which a Foreign Ministry spokesperson used last week to blame the U.S. for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If you like our phrase of the week, check out Slow Chinese: a resource to help you learn, use, and understand Chinese language the way people speak it today.
