Editor’s Note for Tuesday, June 28, 2022

My thoughts today:

I flew through Los Angeles International Airport a couple of weeks ago. As I waited for my plane, three men in full hazmat gear, speaking Beijing-accented Mandarin, walked past me to board a plane bound for Japan. It was a surreal sight — only a handful of people in the entire airpot were even wearing masks. It was a striking illustration of how different China has become from the rest of the world under the pandemic-paranoid rule of Xí Jìnpíng 习近平.

But even Beijing may be starting to relax now: See our top story today for the latest on Beijing’s failing quest for COVID-zero.

Our word of the day is Big White (大白 dà bái), the Chinese slang for people dressed in hazmat suits, probably derived from the Chinese name for Baymax, the Marvel comic character and protagonist of the movie Big Hero 6.