Good morning Quartz readers!
At China’s most important annual political event, the Two Sessions, or dual meetings of the advisory Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and legislative National People’s Congress, Beijing broadcasts decisions already made at top levels of the Communist Party.
As it charts a course for the next five years, China is contending with the economic effects of a pandemic, its rivalry with the US, and a baby bust. Yet just like in 2020, a key agenda of the sessions this year has been making sure that what took place in Hong Kong in 2019—from routine mass protests to a landslide electoral victory Beijing didn’t see coming—can never happen again.
Last year, the NPC approved a national security law that has since sent scores of democracy activists into exile or put them in jail to await trial, with limited access to bail. Now Beijing has unveiled plans to do the exact opposite of what Hong Kongers called for in 2019.
Many in the city, especially its young people, wanted the relatively free and direct method of choosing local representatives to be expanded to higher levels of the city’s government, including the chief executive. Instead, the Party is instituting comprehensive vetting so that only “patriots” can run, allowing a small committee to both nominate and appoint lawmakers, and reducing the role of directly elected local councilors. The changes are expected to be approved by the NPC next week. Oh, and Hong Kong’s long-delayed election still won’t take place this year.
Other business is happening, too—China on Friday set its GDP growth target at more than 6%, seen as a conservative number, and re-emphasized its intent to become more self-reliant in advanced tech—but it seems like the strongest thing Beijing wants to telegraph these days is just how much you stand to lose when you seriously confront the Communist Party.
While that may appear most directly relevant to domestic critics, it’s a strategy Beijing is quite prepared to wield more widely—regardless of any hit to its global standing. To borrow from another competitive realm, the Party isn’t here to make friends. It’s here to win, in this case by thoroughly extinguishing any threat to its style of governing. —Tripti LahiriÂ
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Ethical sourcing for bitcoin. In this provocative piece, Jane Li argues that investors and purveyors of the popular cryptocurrency need to think hard about where it comes from—in many cases, China’s controversial Xinjiang region, where labor camps abound. It’s a choice between cheap electricity and human rights, one that Jane calls “a test for the bitcoin community’s conscience.” —Annabelle Timsit, geopolitics reporter
Competing interests. Covax has finally begun shipping Covid-19 vaccines to African countries. But in Zimbabwe, inconsistent governmental messaging and distrust of these jabs may prevent an actual uptick in vaccinations. For Quartz Africa, Farai Shawn Matiashe details how reliance on traditional herbal remedies for Covid-19 and a federal push backing them may be at odds with vaccination campaigns. Understanding the origins of this skepticism is the first step for public health officials to start building up the trust required to inoculate others. —Katherine Ellen Foley, science and health reporter
Your next-wave vaccine questions, answered. Fresh off an overnight shift, pulmonologist Panagis Galiatsatos grabbed a large coffee and joined health reporter Katherine Foley to answer reader-submitted questions about Covid-19 vaccines. This Q&A covers a lot of important ground—you can read the recap or watch the discussion—but what shines through most is Galiatsatos’s genuine enthusiasm for sharing his expertise. —Kira Bindrim, executive editorÂ
Economics can explain the mystery of Canada’s bothersome butter. As a baker myself, I deeply sympathize with Canadians complaining about the newly hard consistency of their butter. Karen Ho provides a satisfying dive into the rules and regulations that may be prompting dairy farmers down the slippery slope of adding palm oil to their dairy cows’ feed. —Sarah Todd, senior reporter
We now resume our regularly scheduled programming. WandaVision on Disney+ reminds us of how great TV used to be—yes, through its homages to classic programming, but also in its slow rollout of a mystery, as Adam Epstein writes. In a weekly format that felt annoyingly quaint at first, the show’s built-in wait time resurrected the satisfying practice of theorizing with your friends and gave viewers something to look forward to during their pandemic weeks. Has it been serial TV all along? —Susan Howson, email editor
One membership thing that made us 📦
Nearly every year, when Jeff Bezos sends out his annual shareholder letter, he includes his first one, penned in 1997. Clearly, he sees it as a glimpse into Amazon’s fundamental philosophy. Reading it now, knowing where the company will go, a few big ideas emerge:
👸 Focus on the customer. This sounds nice, but in practice it means obsessing over your user interface, investing in customer service, and pioneering ways to make their experience better through technologies like one-click purchasing or algorithms that serve search results curated to their taste.
🔠Think long-term. For Bezos, that’s meant making what he calls some “unconventional” decisions, including not making money—Amazon famously lost money for 17 straight quarters—and investing it in projects that could become moneymakers down the line.
💡 Never stop experimenting. Amazon valued its startup mindset long after it became a corporate heavyweight. That meant experimenting with new ideas and programs, jumping boldly (but strategically) into new industries, and ditching programs that weren’t pulling their weight.
✦ Quartz members can read more about Jeff Bezos’s 1997 letter in our field guide on his legacy. Try out a membership free for a week, and we’ll keep shipping Quartz content directly to your devices in record time.
A brief history of Molotov cocktails
Lightning in a bottle. Sometimes called bottle bombs, petrol bombs, or the poor man’s grenade, Molotov cocktails have become the weapon of choice for protesters and revolutionaries, as well as the average petty arsonist. The device itself has a simple design—often just a bottle filled with alcohol or gasoline, with a rag as a fuse. Why we’re all still using its rather evocative name, however, requires a bit more explanation. The Quartz Weekly Obsession throws some light on the subject.
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Five things from elsewhere that made us smarter
The wandering life of a masterpiece. It might be the subject, adding truth and grit to America’s mythopoesis, and the urgency of the medium, tempera on hardboard, that make Jacob Lawrence’s “Struggle: From the History of the American People” so moving. Or it might be that the series’ missing panels breathe further struggle into the art, so that the stories of their discovery are welcomed as a collective triumph. The latest, in particular, feels like a continuation of the series itself. Three more are missing—you sure you don’t have one? —Annalisa Merelli, reporter
Who gets to stay healthy? Vaccines meant for rural, Black Floridians are going to their wealthy, white neighbors, and the state’s vaccination effort underscores the racial disparities in the US response to the pandemic. As Olivia Goldhill writes for STAT, the shots tend to go to savvy suburbanites who know how to manipulate the system to get their way, rather than the disadvantaged communities who live in the shadow of major distribution sites. —Nicolás Rivero, tech reporter
The biggest tax fraud case in US history. A little-known Texas software billionaire has been charged with a $2 billion tax fraud. Wall Street Journal reporters Miriam Gottfried and Mark Maremont explain how Robert Brockman and his erstwhile protege, Robert Smith, the wealthiest Black man in America, used offshore trusts to avoid paying their fair share, then fell out as the IRS closed in. —Tim Fernholz, senior reporter
Africa is the future. As goes Africa, so goes humanity, writes Bloomberg columnist Noah Smith in his personal Substack email. By 2100, the continent will have as many people as Asia, and a much younger population. Most of the world’s poorest people live in Africa, and humanity’s best bet for eradicating poverty depends on ending it there. Industrialization is the key, and Smith sees reasons to be optimistic. —Oliver Staley, business and culture editor
Press two to be placed on our do not call list. I’m a pretty tech-savvy and informed guy. I listened to the Reply All episodes (1, 2) on tracking down a robocall scam. I read Quartz’s robocalling Obsession. I thought I knew a lot about how deregulation and the internet enabled the proliferation of unwanted phone calls. I was wrong. Walt Hickey’s reporting on the topic for Insider this week is a must-read for understanding how and why your phone keeps buzzing with calls from unknown numbers. —David Yanofsky, Things editor
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, WandaVision theories, and Agatha memes to hi@qz.com. Get the most out of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was brought to you by Tripti Lahiri, Liz Webber, and Susan Howson.