This article by Zhun Xu reviews the evolution of the Chinese COVID policies and places its dramatic turns within the context of the country’s shifting class interests. After the initial COVID outbreak in early 2020, China implemented strong measures to successfully contain the spread of the virus within its borders while the rest of the world experienced huge human and social costs. But in November 2022, the Chinese government abruptly abandoned its strong COVID controls. Xu evaluates this policy about-face in the context of the changing Chinese political economy.