Listen: Xi Jinping's zero-COVID approach faces its toughest test to date with omicron. Why? Because China lacks mRNA jabs, and so few Chinese people have gotten COVID that overall protection is very low. A wave of lockdowns could disrupt the world's second-largest economy — just a month out from the Beijing Winter Olympics. That could spell disaster for Beijing, Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, tells Ian Bremmer on the GZERO World podcast.
Was progress made in the US-Russia talks over Ukraine?. After a slew of political sandals, including the revelation of the BYOB party, will British voters stand by PM Johnson? Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, shares his perspective this week from Kiev, Ukraine.
An Olympian refuses to return home to Belarus and an anti-Lukashenko activist has been found dead in Ukraine. What's going on? How has Delta variant added to the COVAX woes? A year after the Beirut blast, what has changed in Lebanon? One of the biggest non-nuclear blasts in global history. Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week.
Despite what your hear on cable news, it really isn't all a big mess. But the real politics will start to creep in as states have to make difficult choices about opening up economies, and a lot of that will rest on ability to test huge swaths of population. As for global response—China's busy doing its own thing, and Europe and the US are still reeling.