One of our cover stories this week is about how China’s great reopening will shake the world. For nearly three years China has been closed: hardly anyone has entered or left it. From January 8th it will reopen its borders, thus scrapping the last remnant of Xi Jinping’s zero-covid policy. Because the government has failed to prepare properly by vaccinating the elderly, the coming months will see widespread infection and death within China. But eventually something resembling normality will return. The revival of commercial, intellectual and cultural contact with China should be welcomed. But its post-covid economic recovery will be hugely disruptive for the global economy, pushing up the price of oil, gas and other commodities, stoking inflation and forcing central banks to keep monetary policy tighter for longer.

Our other cover calls for an end to magical thinking about Britain’s relationship with the European Union. Brexiteers have been high on their own pixie dust from the start, touting benefits of quitting that turned out to be illusory, while ignoring the real economic harm. Remainers, too, succumb to wishful thinking when they imagine the split can simply be undone. If we had a magic wand, we would gladly turn back the clock to 2016. Since we do not, we suggest instead three realistic ways to improve ties: normalise, build and reimagine.

Ukraine ushered in the new year with a devastating missile strike on a Russian barracks in occupied Donetsk province. At least 400 soldiers were killed, Ukrainian sources said, though Russia has admitted only to 89 losses. For its part, Russia continued its strikes on civilian targets, but to limited effect as Ukraine becomes steadily better at interception.

Appearing at a federal court in Manhattan, Sam Bankman-Fried pled not guilty to fraud and money-laundering charges in relation to the collapse of FTX, a crypto exchange that he ran. Mr Bankman-Fried is currently on bail of $250m. His criminal trial is set to start on October 2nd.