Nothing says “pile into stocks” like piles of corpses.
Don’t blame me for the macabre visual. Blame the haphazard abandonment of virus containment protocols in China, and when you do, don’t forget that pundits near and far, as well as thousands of exasperated Chinese, all but demanded Xi give up on the draconian COVID curbs which crippled the Chinese economy in 2022.
After leading initially to a truly terrifying surge in infections across the world’s most populous nation, the across-the-board rollback of restrictions is now manifesting, on a lag, in overwhelmed crematoriums. Reports of backlogs at funeral homes began to surface last month. Fast forward a few weeks and the situation is… well, terminal, if you’ll forgive the grim allusion.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg described the ordeal of one Shanghai family whose elderly relative “lay decomposing” in their shared home for five days “before a hearse finally arrived to take away her remains.” “We’re lucky it’s the cold winter time,” one relative said. Kudos for finding the silver lining. I guess.
According to Beijing, only a handful of people have died from COVID since China crashed out of Xi’s autocratic containment regime. In reality, thousands of Chinese are dying every single day, according to London-based research firm Airfinity, which currently sees daily infections peaking in China two weeks into January at 3.7 million. “Deaths are estimated to peak 10 days later at approximately 25,000 a day,” Airfinity said Tuesday, adding that they “predict 1.7 million deaths across China by the end of April.”
In his New Year’s address over the weekend, Xi acknowledged that “tough challenges remain” in the fight against the virus. What he’ll surely never acknowledge publicly is the scope of the tragedy. But he won’t have to. Because everyone can see it for themselves. The linked Bloomberg piece included a photo showing rows of yellow body bags being wheeled into the “back entrance” of a funeral home. It looked to have been taken clandestinely, through some trees.
The demand-supply imbalance for cremation services has resulted in hyperinflation. If you want your dead relative’s body burned the same day, it’ll cost you almost $13,000, compared to around $500 under normal conditions. “Bodies are overflowing everywhere,” one employee said. “There’s been so many people dying,” a shop worker near a hospital in Zhuozhou told the AP last week. “They work day and night, but they can’t burn them all.”
Naturally, Chinese stocks traded in Hong Kong enjoyed their best start to a year since 2018, when Hong Kong-listed shares of all kinds staged a ridiculous run of gains. H-shares came into 2023 riding a three-year stretch of losses.
Over the weekend, official PMIs suggested activity in the Chinese services sector contracted sharply in December as the virus swept across the country.
As you can imagine, market participants were quick to attribute a solid start to 2023 for Hong Kong shares to optimism about an eventual economic recovery. There was an article about an uptick in subway ridership on the Mainland and Saxo Bank said that while “widespread” COVID infection is “inevitable,” “the outlook for the Chinese economy has brightened for 2023.”
Yes, things can only get better from here. All we have to do is wait. Like so many Chinese mourners loitering around crematoriums.
Disastrous Covid Managment by a centralized government. This only for not buying western vaccines. Chinese proudness misplaced. Scratching my head.
I read somewhere (here?) that the Chinese government was ready to buy large quantities of Moderna’s vaccine but insisted on IP transfer as part of the deal. Moderna said yea, no thanks.
Great job, President Xi. You and the other goons comprising the top leadership in China sure know how to inspire confidence in the Chinese government. Jeez, I wish I had not sold off my Chinese stocks.
Now we know you even better, and “love” you even more. Gosh, I wish I could go back to my junior year in High-School in 1973 when Kissinger visited Mao in his Bejing home. Chou-Enlai was there too! What a time! Those were the days!
“Great job, President Xi.” ?
I don’t know. I kind of think, in isolation, this end of Covid Zero is a masterful stroke. I thought Xi had painted China into a corner and policy had done a lot of harm. The set up of the dissent makes the outcome of the pivot (relatively) blame contained or containable. Further down the road circumstances will be plausibly viewed as inevitable . As the pandemic unfolded this current state of affairs probably was largely inevitable “The People” will forget about debatable choices (buying Western Vaccine).
Interesting in your comment…
I am possibly three years older than you.
So much hope. So many possibilities. So many lost opportunities. I am thinking of progress (?) This site has taught me not to be prescriptive or proscriptive.
So lets just observe.
Perspective. It has been quite the ride, has it not?
Thx, northwest!
Indeed, ending Covid Zero was necessary, but it should have never been. Had Xi invested in western vaccines, China could have avoided greater volumes of mass-death among their people. Instead, they’re now embracing the proposition of mass death from Covid!
It’s more important to Xi to disallow western vaccines and allow many thousands – perhaps millions – of Chinese to die. They said no to vaccines that were proven to work. I say, good luck with that.
It’s interesting to me that Xi and the Chinese are rolling the dice, not only in regard to Covid. Xi and the leadership seem to be betting that the US and (maybe) some other western countries, will not be able to sidestep the need to use Chinese manufacturing resources, no matter what Joe Biden says. The jury may be out on that question for some time to come because the Chinese will compete. They do that well. Workforce pricing and a growing manufacturing base was the motive for the US to engage them back in the 70s. That will persist, though to a lesser degree. They’ll always have people to do the work.
Some US manufacturing may be able to come home or “near-shore.” Some shops in Mexico are already getting US work. India continues to compete, as are other Asian countries. I would send work to Ukraine (after the war is over). They know how to manufacture. Who knows? Maybe some of it can go to Russia (after the war is over). I don’t know what options are available in the world today, compared to the 70s. But I believe they’re more numerous than they were then.
My fear (and expectation) is that China will continue to build its power. I believe they desire to confront US economic, political, and military leadership in the world. And if we can avoid WWIII in Ukraine, China’s leaders will sail on a sharper tac toward their goals. Their policies, which have an edge for their own people, will grow more restrictive with each passing year. Their leaders will be anxious to assert power to unfavorably influence and rise above the free world – especially the United States.
Right now, I hope that after the Ukraine war is over, Russia will lean away from Asia and more toward Europe. There’s a chance that will happen. But I think it’s quite doubtful because of China.
Well, in one sense Xi gave the people what they were asking for, though they may not have, strictly speaking, wanted the consequences of easing the draconian lock down measures. Power/the economy comes with a side of the virus/death.
Yeah, there was no “right” answer. He waited (far) too long, and I’m not sure why. He seems to have believed that clinging to “COVID zero” was somehow important for securing a third term at the Party congress in October, but he already had something close to absolute power, and the moderates he purged were, if anything, arguing for a relaxation of the curbs ahead of the congress. Anyway, it is what it is. And what it is isn’t good right now.
You assume that he is motivated by consolidation of power (?). What if the mindset is… something else?
That you don’t understand or value.
I’m just wondering.
I’ll give zero-Covid credit for one thing: if it hadn’t been in place during the earlier, far more deadly waves like Delta, mortality probably would have exceeded 10 million.
That said, I was very surprised they went with the full rip-the-bandaid-off approach. I thought for sure they would try to split the difference (e.g. you can quarantine at home, no more lock-downs for people who don’t test positive), thereby easing pressure on hospitals (and, apparently, morgues). They went to all the trouble to develop their 20 point plan, followed by an additional 10 point amendment, only to go, “Fuck it.” And so it goes.
To me, Xi’s strategy could be seen as fairly shrewd. Zero Covid keeps the bad numbers down, at least as he sees it, so he gets to be Emperor for life. All the while the pressure is building to go bare, as it were. So after he gets what he wanted, he says, “Ok I’m a man of the people and I understand your pain so no more zero Covid.” He knew what would happen so if folks complain now he can say, “See, I told you so.” I’ll bet my next paycheck he and the top ten have been secretly inoculated with Moderna’s vaccine sequence.
the powers that be can blame the protestors but ultimately the decision fell on them and simply put, it was dangerously reckless timing wise, and should have been layered in over some months…my hope is that the surviving masses increase their awareness of this dismissive, cynical, and destructive if not abusive leadership…
I wonder if the deaths of mostly elderly people might benefit to China’s demographic dilemma.
Subtract 1-2MM elderly and China’s demographic problem looks little changed.