Today’s Essential Eight items:

1. Third volume on Xi’s thoughts on strengthening the military - I see this and the books that came out yesterday as more data points showing that Xi is not under pressure. The “pen” (propaganda) and the “gun” (PLA) bureaucracies are pushing him to the next level, so to speak.

2. Li Keqiang, logistics czar - The Premier inspected the Ministry of Transport Monday to ensure that the relevant organs are doing everything they can to get transport and logistics back on track, that wheat harvesters can get to where they need to go, and to “reconcile COVID-19 control and economic and social development”.

3. Shanghai still has community cases, Beijing does not - Shanghai still has the virus circulating in the community but has chosen to go back to targeted lockdowns when cases are found. Beijing meanwhile looks to have succeeded in this round of pandemic controls, which will be seen as more evidence that dynamic zero-Covid (DZC) does work, that the problem is not the pol…