Chinese Economics Thread

[InfamousMeow]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1566575834353528832

Zero Covid now making this year's GDP growth only 2-3%. The CCP planned for 5% or more. The more the policy fails, the more its supporters approve of it. Pretty hilarious.

I no longer think ZC will be removed next year. I suspect it will be kept on due to popular support. Well, who am I to judge? If China wants this, let them have it. They will have to bear the consequences of much lower growth. The national security implication it carries are significant: convergence with the US will take much longer than we all thought a few years ago.

Not that blind ZC supporters in this forum seem to care.

"Blind ZC supporters in this forum" is a nice ad-hominem and strawman. This for sure will make the conversation constructive right? You call other people "blind supporters" but you still failed to convince people of your reasoning. You still yet failed to address the argument of those having opposing views to yours. All you did was saying Zero Covid is "a bad strategy" and proceed to call people who disagree with you "blind/overzealous supporters" without addressing their arguments in anyway.

Following your behavior of name-calling and disingenuous attempt (if any) to have a discussion or a "moderate criticism", I think it is pretty fair to say that you have absolutely no right to call other people out for saying "Haters gonna hate." You are way worse in committing ad-hominem, strawman, and over-generalization, and you keep doing it.

Chinese Economics Thread
Chinese Economics Thread

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

How much of economic slowdown can be attributed to zero Covid vs simply due to sharp recession among Western economies since the Ukraine war?

For better or worse, China still shares the same globe as US and EU. A recession there will also cause ripples over to China.

As long as its rivals are falling faster, very high growth should maybe seen as a luxury rather than a necessity. Keeping inflation under control is more important than raising gdp.

It is only a warning sign if US grows and China doesn't. As long as they're in recession, convergence is impossible, even if China doesn't grow.

He'll give you a non sequitur response proving how sometimes our friends are knee deep into western nonsense and or they can't seem to see the forest from the trees.

As many studies have been done on this pertinent subject by Western reputable medical organizations that stated if China were to open up the country as was done in the west the number of fatalities and cases would have been ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH not to mention the ill effects of LONG COVID which would devastate the WORKING CLASS and thereby bringing more economic problems than otherwise believed. Brookings Institute study have stated that in America alone their most conservarive estimate shows that the total cost to the American economy from loss of productivity along with the health induced costs from the virus is around $1 TRILLION in 5 years. And that's from a country with a highly developed health care system. Whereas China's health care system isn't upto the standards albeit it's been improving but it's still a long way to go.

Most important point, while the constant lock down and testing are indeed affecting the growth of China's economy the rest of the developed world economic performance aren't exactly beating records in a positive manner either, and that's despite their abandonment of sensible covid-19 policies since both the government and the public are pretty fed up with the whole covid-19 thing. Double digit inflations, sluggish if not incoming recession, protests and the uptick in crimes and violence have risen in G7 countries led by the U.S. along with it political instability, political infighting etc...so I challenge the naysayers to provide some credible examples they can dangle in front of us that can fully shatter our current stance on China's DYNAMIC Zero-COVID policy.

At the end of the day, when the Chinese government believes based on data and advice from the medical experts that further opening is going to best serve the majority of the people in China then that'll happen. Then all these constant whining and fear nonsense on China's TEMPORARY economic slowdown will inevitably pick up. And then like clockwork the nitpicking will simply jump on to another areas where China is once again, supposed to be vulnerable, is vulnerable, or already dying or some shit like that.

 

[Petrolicious88]

—The US suffers through a recession every 20 years. No recession in the last 100 years have lasted for more than 2 years with the exception of the Great Depression of 1929. That was when an Inexperienced Fed stood by and did nothing.

— After each recession the S&P grew to new heights. Bump and dump every 20 years. Even during 2008 when people lost their homes and was drowning in mortgage debts, the recession ended in 18 months.

— China’s current situation has little to due with what’s happening in the US. Consumer demand is still sky high in the US. China’s trade surplus is widening and keeping the economy afloat. The problems are almost entirely self- inflicted.

—Zero Covid have had a huge impact on the economy. You can’t run a business if you are in lockdown every other month. You can’t lock down 20 million people after just 20 infections.
There’s little transparency too. No announcement on when Zero Covid might end or when new treatments be mass implemented. There’s no PR to assuage people. Even if new vaccines are developed, you still can’t prevent the sporadic infections, which were the cause of past lock downs.

 

[tokenanalyst]

There is not economic benefit of letting a killer virus to spread wildly, having daily millions of sick workers is not going improve the economy, China will have to force people to go to work sick. but lets see the data of the governments that decided to let this virus spread wildly, they must be doing very well, with thousands of workers calling sick every day every time there is an outbrake.


China


Not good but also not as bad, while COVID lockdowns makes good headlines in Western mainstream in reality the vast majority of China is working full throttle and most of the lockdowns last a week or two with the worst being the Shanghai one due the poor response of the city goverment. It could be that at some point a more infectious variant will appear that will overwhelm China defenses, hopefully will be a less virulent variant but in the meanwhile is the duty of the goverment to save as many lives as possible while minimizing the economic blow.

 

[ZeEa5KPul]

Simple question for those whining about zero COVID - what was China's economic growth in 2021?

 

[tokenanalyst]

—Zero Covid have had a huge impact on the economy. You can’t run a business if you are in lockdown every other month. You can’t lock down 20 million people after just 20 infections.

The Chinese are not locking down 20 million, the have heat maps that allow them to close districts where they have most of the infected, they test everyone and isolate the infected.

 

[Peas]

Whether or not we failed or success, we have prepared the meet the result.
Failure, this will be a valuable warning to the whole world.
Success, this will also be a valuable experience to the whole world.
At least we did something indeed. I am satisfied.

 

[siegecrossbow]

I think the thing with zero COVID is that if you stop practicing, there is no turning back. This may explain the reticence at ending ZC.

 

[BlackWindMnt]

There is not economic benefit of letting a killer virus to spread wildly, having daily millions of sick workers is not going improve the economy, China will have to force people to go to work sick. but lets see the data of the governments that decided to let this virus spread wildly, they must be doing very well, with thousands of workers calling sick every day every time there is an outbrake.

View attachment 97061
China
View attachment 97062

Not good but also not as bad, while COVID lockdowns makes good headlines in Western mainstream in reality the vast majority of China is working full throttle and most of the lockdowns last a week or two with the worst being the Shanghai one due the poor response of the city goverment. It could be that at some point a more infectious variant will appear that will overwhelm China defenses, hopefully will be a less virulent variant but in the meanwhile is the duty of the goverment to save as many lives as possible while minimizing the economic blow.

All it took me to be convinced of Zero covid being a good choice was getting omnicron twice myself in like a 4 month span and being sick for 3~4 days each time. I then knew it would kill productivity going let it rip.

 

[tokenanalyst]

All it took me to be convinced of Zero covid being a good choice was getting omnicron twice myself in like a 4 month span and being sick for 3~4 days each time. I then knew it would kill productivity going let it rip.

Developing countries that you see that do well with Covid is because people just go to work sick, they have little or no regulations about sick paid and sick leave. Workers have not other option than going to the workplace and companies don't care.