News Snapshot:
After being brutally battered by the coronavirus pandemic last year, Chinese factories bounced back with unexpected vigor last month. The official index of manufacturing activity, based on surveys of purchasing managers at companies in China, shot up in February from the month before to its highest level in more than a decade. The index of service sector activity also rose. Both measures suggested that business had expanded for a second straight month, after contracting during the Covid restrictions. After a year of unrelenting lockdowns, quarantines and coronavirus testing that paralyzed much of the country, Beijing lifted restrictions without warning in...
