| Months of speculation over whether President Xi Jinping will visit Hong Kong on July 1 was put to rest by none other than the city's police. After all, someone had to explain why traffic will be a nightmare. Xi will preside over celebrations marking 25 years since the UK returned Hong Kong to China, and the swearing-in of incoming Chief Executive John Lee. His trip has been complicated by a Covid surge, with the city recording thousands of daily cases including infections in Lee's inner circle. Still, a no-show would have been significant: a Chinese president has overseen every July 1 inauguration in Hong Kong since 1997.  Chinese President Xi Jinping Photographer: Paul Yeung/Bloomberg Police plan to lock down large swaths of the city, ban drones and block all protests. Many of Hong Kong's elite have been isolating and testing daily ahead of the event to avoid infecting Xi during his first trip outside mainland China in 893 days, to be exact. When Xi last visited Hong Kong in 2017, he warned that challenges to China's rule were "absolutely impermissible." After Hong Kong responded to that with months of anti-government protests in 2019, Xi imposed a sweeping national security law that has crushed dissent in the city. Now, all eyes will be on what China's most powerful leader in decades says about Covid curbs and the future of Hong Kong's autonomy. By the way, we've selected some of the most notable reads on the handover anniversary in this special edition of Next China. See below: China halved its dreaded mandatory two-week hotel quarantine for inbound travelers, marking the country's biggest shift yet in a Covid policy that has left the world's second-largest economy increasingly isolated.  The hallway of a quarantine hotel in Shanghai. Photographer: LEO RAMIREZ/AFP In Hong Kong, where business groups have repeatedly warned that travel restrictions are chipping away at the city's reputation as a financial hub, the incoming government is considering reducing hotel quarantine to five days from seven, according to people familiar with the matter. Though hotel confinement seems strange compared to the rest of the world, any reduction in quarantine will be welcomed by travelers, who've had to endure isolations as long as three weeks to get into China or Hong Kong during the pandemic. But beware of interpreting developments as a sign China is preparing to live with the virus. Xi declared Covid Zero is the country's best policy, and that herd immunity would lead to "unimaginable" consequences for the nation, whose elderly are largely under-vaccinated. It sounds more like a fine-tuning of Covid Zero, rather than an end to it. Don't look now but Chinese stocks are approaching a bull market. The CSI 300 is headed for its fifth straight week of gains and the index has risen almost 20% from its lows in April, helped by optimism about Beijing easing some of its Covid restrictions and that the government will continue to provide support from monetary and fiscal policies. Bullish calls have been getting louder on Chinese stocks, helping the CSI 300 Index outperform global peers by the most since 2014 this quarter. China IPOs also appear to be roaring back. Finally, here are a few other stories that caught our attention: | 
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