As Covid becomes threat to the economy, how can Chinese leaders rescue it?

More than two years after a deadly strain of coronavirus was first identified in the central city of Wuhan, China remains locked in a COVID crisis. Around 400 million people are currently thought to be living under some form of lockdown across the country. One of China’s largest cities, Shanghai, has been paralysed for the past month, with many of its residents hemmed in by hastily erected metal fences. The capital, Beijing, is now striving to avoid a similar fate.

The extraordinary story of China’s ongoing, and increasingly desperate, struggle against COVID-19 combines hubris at its own early