Happy Year of the Rabbit! I hope everyone who was on holiday last week had a fun, overfed and happy time.

Summary of the Essential Eight:

1. Covid outbreak peaked? - Officials sound confident that the worst has passed. That does seem to be the case in the more easily observable urban areas; rural areas are much less transparent, and if things are worse than officials say we may never know. Let’s hope somehow the country had a less bad exit wave than just about every other country had. There is no question that economic activity is surging back, though still below 2019 levels.

2. 2023 economic priorities - Provinces have started issuing their 2023 GDP growth targets and key action items, giving us a good idea of what we will see at the National People’s Congress meeting in just about five weeks (get excited!).

3. US Secretary of State’s visit to PRC less than a week away - Blinken will visit the PRC February 5-6th. The signs are not positive for any sort of a “reset” or even stabilization. In the …