China's big problem isn’t Ukraine — it’s COVID

Everyone's talking a lot about China these days, mostly related to China's problematic position on Russia's war in Ukraine.

But China's big problem is at home with COVID, according to Melinda Liu, Beijing bureau chief for Newsweek.

The country which once boasted about beating the West on the pandemic is seeing its worst infection numbers in over two years. The streets of its largest city are empty, Liu told Ian Bremmer on GZERO World.

Liu says that Shanghai's lockdown is symbolic because its people always saw themselves as "the best managed, the most advanced, the most sophisticated." But now they're facing a challenge they never saw coming — and that "hits right to the soul."

Watch the GZERO World episode: China’s discontent & the Russia distraction