The pandemic spread of Covid-19 will slow and end, yet the aftermath — financially, politically, socially — will linger for years. Among the many new realities the world will face afterwards is a more assertive China, itself seeking new ruling legitimacies in the face of slowed growth and its more strained relationship with western nations. In that and other respects, the virus really does change everything. So it is difficult not to read a newly-released China book (most of them completed b