Editor’s Note for Monday, April 18, 2022

My thoughts today:

There will be no change to China’s COVID policies, as a widely circulated official document made clear yet again today. In an article originally published by the Communist Party’s Study Times magazine, Mǎ Xiǎowěi 马晓伟, the director of China’s National Health Commission, cited a speech by Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 as the “final word…on epidemic control,” and said China must “resolutely oppose the wrong thinking of coexistence with COVID.”

Yet Shanghai is showing some signs of relaxation of its strict lockdowns. You can read more about the ongoing COVID crisis in China in our top story today.

Related on Bloomberg: China meets with foreign chambers as lockdowns hit business, and Global investors flee China fearing that risks eclipse rewards.

The latter article is by Sofia Horta e Costa and Tania Chen. I spoke to Horta e Costa last week, and, in case you missed it, we published a Q&A with her on Friday that addressed some of the themes in the article.

Our word of the day is the final word, or set the tune with one beat of the gong (一锤定音 yīchuídìngyīn).