The last thing Chinese leaders want is to be isolated at the international stage.

When other countries learn to live with the virus, I think China will find that the zero tolerance strategy unsustainable.

Hello and welcome to the GZero World podcast. This is where you'll find extended versions of my interviews on public television.

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today we talk about the biggest geopolitical risk for 2022.

Spoiler alert, you've heard about it before. COVID.

But this time, we dive deep into how China's current coronavirus strategy could pose a big threat to the global economy.

President Xi Jinping's zero COVID policy has done extremely well so far to keep the virus at bay

through unprecedented capacity to track and trace, to quarantine and to lock down.

But Omicron, a variant said to be at least four times more contagious than Delta, could make that strategy highly ineffective.

More lockdowns and staffing shortages in China will lead to supply chain disruptions, higher

inflation, and greater political instability worldwide.

I speak to Yan Jong-Wong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign

Relations.

He thinks China will soon have to learn how to live with the virus.

Let's get to it.

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