Ian Bremmer: Zero COVID no longer works, and China will pay a price

For Ian Bremmer, China has the strongest political governance of any major economy today. Sometime that's good, and has allowed China to become the world's second largest economy.

But there's also a downside we're going to see this year, Bremmer said during a livestream conversation to launch Eurasia Group's annual Top Risks report. China's zero-COVID policy, which worked incredibly well in 2020 to respond to the pandemic, no longer works because the virus has changed.

However, Xi Jinping is so invested in his strategy that he'll likely double down on it in 2022 — at the expense of more shutdowns and closures in global supply chains. Xi himself has not left the country since January 2020 — hampering China's own diplomatic ability.

"China cannot move towards living with the virus" until it has its own mRNA vaccines — and that means it'll be a very tough year for the country, and its leader.

Watch the full discussion on Top Risks 2022.