Investors ignore China COVID spike at their peril

HONG KONG, Nov 18 (Reuters Breakingviews) – The blistering relief rally underway in Chinese equities is understandable. President Xi Jinping had implemented a mixture of harsh policies targeting Covid-19, technology entrepreneurs and real estate developers that kept equity indexes in the basement and aggravated capital flight - roughly $101 billion was pulled out the country, reading between the lines of official balance of payments data for the first six months of the year. Tentative relaxations on all the main fronts have investors cheering; the Golden Dragon index (.HXC) of New York-listed Chinese companies is up 37% since late October. Yet…