With 43 days left until the 100th anniversary party for the CCP, have we entered a “quiet period” where nothing that can spoil the celebrations will be allowed to happen? The pressure on cadres throughout the system to not screw up must be immense.

Today’s Essential Eight items:

1. Cracking heads over commodity prices

2. Xi and Putin have a special energy

3. Taiwan cases surging

4. New vaccine, 15 million shots in a day

5. Liu He’s son is a VC

6. EU-PRC CAI deal in real trouble?

7. Hostile foreign forces

8. US-China

Note: I am attending the virtual Ditchley China conference tomorrow. I am going to try to get a newsletter out as well, it may be truncated though.

Thanks for reading.