North Asia correspondent Michael Smith explains China’s U-turn on COVID-zero, whether it will work and what it means for both the global economy and Xi Jinping’s grip on power.

Background reading:

• How Xi’s great COVID-19 pivot is actually going Experts and even China’s own health authorities are now predicting 90 per cent of the country’s 1.4 billion people will become infected in the fast-paced reopening.
• Mass lockdowns or mass deaths: Xi’s COVID-19 dilemma Following a week of extraordinary protests, China has reached the point of no return. How Xi manages the road out from his COVID zero policy will reverberate around the world.
• 'I feared being disappeared': Inside my escape from China Welcome to life in Xi Jinping’s China. Where the authorities can enter your home in the middle of the night to intimidate and harass you when you are not even suspected of a crime.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.