CHINA COVID: Record Number of Cases, Lockdowns Spread, Will West Follow?
Western countries have used the Beijing model to impose their own lockdowns
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China’s National Health Commission announced 31,444 locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday, which CNN noted was the highest number on record and surpassed the previous peak in April, when there were 29,317 cases.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the country’s ‘zero-COVID’ approach will likely mean that the “world can’t rely on China to be a locomotive of growth as the U.S. and European economies slow.”
Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, indicated at last month’s 20th Party Congress that Beijing will not let up on its “zero-COVID” policy despite growing unrest in the country.
We have noted that these lockdowns, sometimes impacting entire cities of over 20 million people, have dramatically impacted the Chinese economy. Beijing’s economy was expected to grow by 5.5 percent in 2022 – while the world emerged from the virus—but it is now expected to grow by 3.3 percent this year. Project-Syndicate noted that the 2.2 percent disparity will likely cost the economy $384 billion in GDP.
Xi is beginning to face increased scrutiny by the population that is tired of living under lockdowns.
All eyes are on the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province in central China. The plant is operated by the Taiwanese tech giant that runs an iphone factory there.
The company shut down the facility due to COVID cases and held about 200,000 employees on the premises for weeks. This week, thousands of workers confronted riot police and broke down barricades, The New York Times reported.
“What we’re witnessing at Foxconn is the bankruptcy of ‘the China model,’” Wu Qiang, a political analyst in Beijing, told the paper. “It’s the collapse of China’s image as a production powerhouse, as well as China’s relationship to globalization.”
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal continues to report on China’s extended lockdown because we’ve noted that the West has used Beijing to form its modus operandi in dealing with the virus. (See “CHINA RAMPS UP COVID WAR: DETAINS 200,000 AT IPHONE PLANT, ONE COVID CASE AND THEY LOCKDOWN DISNEYLAND,” “CHINA XI HINTS THAT HE WILL NOT LET UP ON COUNTRY’S ZERO-COVID POLICY…WILL WEST FOLLOW AGAIN?” and “CHINA CONTINUES ITS ‘ZERO-COVID STRATEGY,’ LOCKS DOWN MUCH OF WUHAN AGAIN.”)
We noted earlier this month that Xi Jinping, when accepting his third term as China’s president, vowed no letup in the policy, saying it has “protected the people’s health and safety to the greatest extent possible.”
We’ve noted that Xi has filled his top brass with Yes-Men, but indicated earlier this month that he is not completely ignorant to the hardships the country faces. He told the fifth annual China International Import Expo in Shanghai that China will pursue a “mutually beneficial strategy” of opening up and adhering to the “right course of economic globalization.”
“We will step up efforts to cultivate a robust domestic market, upgrade trade in goods, develop new mechanisms for trade in services, and import more quality products,” he said. “China will work with all countries and parties to share the opportunities in its vast market.”
Beijing announced Friday that it will ease some of its COVID protocols on travelers. Visiting international passengers will now have to undergo just one pre-departure test and will be forced to quarantine for five days instead of seven. Those who are considered “close contacts” to a COVID case will also be forced to quarantine at centralized government facilities for five days instead of seven, followed by an additional three at home.
We noted earlier this month that more than half of the 307 companies surveyed by the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai believe the draconian anti-COVID lockdown measures being continued by China’s president Xi Jinping are damaging business conditions.
A fifth of the firms said they are cutting back on new investment because of the policy.
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