Rabobank: The Dilemma Facing China Is Truly Awful
As has been the case since Monday’s sell-off, there is an attempt to try to look on the bright side of the virus headlines. Chinese officials are spreading the word globally that things are under control and that other countries should not be closing their borders to China, in line with the WHO recommendations that says that free-flows of people during a potential epidemic is completely fine.Of course, at home China is still under draconian lockdown, with tens of millions of people not allowed to leave their homes, and hundreds of millions more voluntarily following the same advice. Moreover, as a former Mexican ambassador to China publicly notes, when Mexico briefly suffered from H1N1 bird ‘flu back in 2009 China’s response was to ignore the WHO’s recommendations and: place all Mexican nationals in China under quarantine; cancel all direct flights to Mexico; stop issuing visas to Mexicans; and closed all its consulates in Mexico.
After having extended its Lunar New Year break, and yet with more cities and firms still shutting down than doing any re-opening, Beijing is starting to become cognizant of just how deep and serious the economic damage is going to be if this goes on much longer. We are, after all, talking about 80% of the economy, and 90% of exporters, simply not functioning. This is already seeing supply-chain knock-on effects for a swathe of global firms and this, very much like the virus itself, will snowball as time passes if nothing changes. For a country that was already seeing foreign firms talk about shifting production to other locations this is a problem. Thus, perhaps, some of the urgency in trying to stress that everything is returning to normal soon, and that the WHO advice is worth following – this time.
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