Xi Jinping’s Chairman Mao act won’t end well for China

Plus: FrankenCovid! [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a lab-grown super-virus of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Xi is driving China’s economy]( in the wrong direction. - [Russia won’t be laid low]( easily. - Maybe somebody should keep an eye on [labs building super-viruses](bbg://news/stories/RK044GDWX2Q6). - People will still [pay up for chocolate](. China’s Great Slide Backward Mao Zedong led the People’s Republic of China for 27 years. To call his results “mixed” would be too generous. Sure, on the one hand, he rid his country of foreign interference. But on the other hand, that process involved killing untold millions of Chinese in two nightmarish errors, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. In a more rational world, the downsides of Mao’s legacy would be so heavy as to bury it in the ground forever. But in our real, garbage world, humans just can’t get enough of unhinged nationalism. And its superpower is to make such minor bothers as mass slaughter easily forgiven. So now the ultra-nationalist Xi Jinping is embracing Mao’s bloody legacy. He has built a similar cult of personality and cemented himself in power seemingly for life. At the same time, David Fickling notes, he is [steadily closing China off to global trade](, reversing the economic opening begun by Deng Xiaoping that turned China into the world’s economic engine. By the time Mao died in 1976, China was an economic backwater, among the world’s very poorest nations, David notes. It won’t be relegated again anytime soon, but reviving Mao-nomics will not end well. Xi has also intensified Mao’s legacy of brutally suppressing dissent, from the systematic abuse of Uighur Muslims to an attack just this week on protesters outside China’s consulate in Manchester. Xi, like Mao and other nationalist autocrats through history, is increasingly [ranting against enemies foreign and domestic](, notes Matthew Brooker. The result of this Maoist revival will probably be a Great Slide Backward, if not worse. Putin Is the Thing That Wouldn’t Leave Xi’s partner in authoritarianism, Vladimir Putin, is fighting for his political life, and also possibly his life-life, by doubling down on his own great mistake, the Ukraine war. Russia’s go-to move on such occasions is to kill as many civilians and wreck as much vital infrastructure as possible, and this war is no different. Who needs to win hearts and minds when you’ve already buried them all under rubble? And Bloomberg’s editorial board warns Putin won’t be satisfied with just blowing up Ukrainian hospitals, power plants and train stations. He has already struck gas pipelines and transit systems in the West, and that’s [just a taste of the havoc he can wreak](. The editorial board suggests the West harden its defenses while also reminding Putin of just how much damage it can do in return. Just don’t start a nuclear war in the process! Haha, ugh. The whole mess is an M.C. Escher maze with death at every turn. Such dilemmas tend to inspire wishful thinking. Some people even hope [Russia can be brought as low as Germany]( was after World War II, Leonid Bershidsky writes. This is of course an impossible dream, without even considering the ghastly human sacrifice required to crush the Nazis. We will likely have to settle for a far less decisive result. Maybe the best we can hope for, Andreas Kluth writes, is that whatever decent Russians remain in the military will [rebel at firing nukes]( and committing other atrocities. It’s a pretty thin straw, but graspers can’t be choosers.  Just in Time for Halloween: FrankenCovid The 80th annual [Ian Malcolm]( Award for Scientists So Preoccupied With Whether They Could That They Didn’t Stop to Think If They Should goes to the Boston University researchers who created a deadlier Covid variant in a lab. Congratulations to all. Please don’t keep up the good work. Actually, Faye Flam suggests such “[gain of function” studies](bbg://news/stories/RK044GDWX2Q6) — as in, Can I make this virus “gain a function” like making humanity go extinct? — can be useful. Maybe some scientist will cook up a friendly, helpful Covid that eats cancer or something. But maybe we could also use a smidgen more oversight of such activity, particularly now that these labs are cropping up around the world, including in Russia, a country with absolutely no motive to create terrible new viruses whatsoever.  Further Covid Reading: Should you be [scared of the new Covid variants](? Not so much, if you’ve had your shots. — Lisa Jarvis Telltale Charts Apparently selling stuff like chocolate, coffee and pet food still [gives you pricing power](, writes Andrea Felsted. Who knew? People with jobs in downtown [San Francisco are still into working from home]( in a really big way, which Justin Fox writes is a blessing and a curse for the city. Further Reading [Jeremy Hunt is the grown-up]( Britain needs, a throwback to early Tony Blair. — Adrian Wooldridge Fund managers are [just about as pessimistic]( as they get, which is a good sign. — John Authers It’s a great time for [older homeowners to downsize](. — Conor Sen [Offshore wind turbines]( can provide power to California just when solar energy fades. — Liam Denning [SPR oil releases]( are discouraging new US production. — David Fickling People just can’t get enough of [flying on airplanes](. — Thomas Black ICYMI Liz Truss’s government is [looking more implode-y]( than ever. Circle K will [start selling weed](. Prosecutors say there’s evidence Donald [Trump obstructed justice](. Kickers Tuna use [sharks as back scratchers](. (h/t Liam Denning) One year of California wildfires could [wipe out 18 years of emissions cuts](. WFH may have caused a [baby boom](. How to use a [watch as a compass](. New photos of the [Pillars of Creation]( just dropped. Notes:  Please send back scratchers and complaints to Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Instagram](, [TikTok](, [Twitter]( and [Facebook](. Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Opinion Today newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( [Ads Powered By Liveintent]( | [Ad Choices]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022