China fails to work out a plan to ease its economic malaise
Premier Li Keqiang issued a bleak warning on Wednesday about the perilous state of China’s economy, telling more than 100,000 officials in a nationwide video conference that they urgently needed to boost growth, reduce unemployment and secure the summer grain harvest.
But the lack of any concrete new initiatives from the central government and muted state media coverage of the event suggest that there is still no easy way out of the economic crisis triggered by president Xi Jinping’s controversial zero-Covid policy. The strategy has brought commercial activity to a complete or near halt in dozens of cities over the past three months.
Just a few hours after Li spoke, Chinese state television’s main evening news broadcast buried a brief and much softened version of his remarks in the middle of its bulletin. It led instead with a long item about Chinese police officers — who pride themselves on being “the handle on the…
