Harsh lockdowns are a fact of life in “zero-covid” China. One in September in Chengdu, a south-western city of 20m, stopped locals from visiting tea houses, a favourite pastime. In Sanya, an island-resort town, tens of thousands of tourists were kept off the white-sand beaches in August. In Guiyang, another large south-western provincial capital, it was the boozing that suffered. Apart from forcibly confining almost 6m residents to their homes for most of last month, the authorities shut more than 50 shops owned by Kweichow Moutai, a distiller of a fiery, sorghum-based liquor. And it happened right in the middle of the year’s busiest shopping
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