Economist: China’s unemployment rate exceeds 20%, not 6%
The CCP’s epidemic prevention and control policies have led to the Chinese economy falling into more and more serious difficulties. According to data released by the Bureau of Statistics of the Communist Party of China on May 16, the total retail sales of consumer goods and industrial added value declined in April, and the growth rate of fixed asset investment excluding farmers was sharp. Slowing; housing starts and residential sales fell 44% and 47% year-over-year, respectively, in April, a steeper decline than in March. Meanwhile, China’s overall unemployment rate soared to a two-year high of 6.1%.
The Wall Street Journal reported on May 18 that if the prevention and control measures are finally lifted, economic activity may pick up, but the damage caused by the CCP’s pursuit of “dynamic clearing” is having a knock-on effect in the economy, and it will not disappear for a long time.
The German-language media “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” published an article on May 17, pointing out that Beijing’s “zero policy” caused China’s major economic indicators to decline in April, far exceeding experts’ expectations.
Economists don’t think China’s economic situation will improve anytime soon. Economic research firm Longzhou Economic News said on Monday (May 16) that the Chinese government is reluctant to relax the zero-clearing policy, and the Chinese economy will not be able to see a V-shaped recovery after the outbreak of the CCP virus in Wuhan, as it did in 2020. Oxford economist George Magnus judged that China’s unemployment rate may not only be around 6% officially announced, but more than 20%.
China’s central bank did not cut lending rates on Monday (May 16) as many economists expected. Economists say the Fed’s rate hike has raised concerns about capital outflows from China, and the central bank’s room for monetary easing is limited.
While businesses and consumers have become more pessimistic, top Chinese leaders have reiterated their insistence on a dynamic clearing policy, economists say, and the bigger challenge facing the Chinese government is to stimulate demand.
The American “Foreign Affairs Magazine” recently published an article pointing out that the current zero-clearing policy implemented by the CCP not only disrupts the normal life of the people, but also brings political and economic risks.
The article said that for all countries, the CCP virus epidemic is a public health problem. But for the CCP, the virus is a political and economic risk. The experience of other countries has shown that the Omikron variant of the CCP virus can be managed and contained with an appropriate strategy. But the Chinese government insists on maintaining policies that are unsustainable and lack scientific basis. In doing so, it has shown a growing willingness to put China’s economic and even social stability at risk.
The article stated that the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China is scheduled to be held later this year, and the success of the CCP’s anti-epidemic strategy has been a core part of the CCP’s state propaganda almost since the beginning of the CCP virus epidemic. If the Chinese authorities lose public trust and support on this core issue, they could soon face a growing crisis of legitimacy.
In China, a growing number of free-thinking academics worry that zeroing also opens up a new possibility that Chinese authorities will seek to control every aspect of people’s lives once the epidemic is over. “To be honest, I’m scared,” a prominent financial commentator said on WeChat. “I can assert that the management and control methods of treating people like pigs, dogs and criminals will remain even after the epidemic is over.”
A political science professor at Fudan University predicts that extreme social measures will be “tightened” rather than relaxed after the pandemic. For many Chinese, such a ruthless and terrifying country has not been seen since the Cultural Revolution.
Fears of growing social control have led many wealthy people to consider leaving. During Shanghai’s lockdown this spring, a WeChat index that measures search popularity on the social media platform showed a seven-fold increase in searches for the word “immigrant.”
The Chinese government’s behavior so far suggests that it is unlikely to change course, implying at least an implicit acknowledgment that such a policy does more harm than good. The recent decision by the Chinese Communist Party to cancel the hosting of the 2023 Summer Asian Cup shows that the Chinese government has no plans to eliminate the epidemic next year. Instead, it seems likely to stake everything on its current practices, even cutting off from the world, a move that is undermining the Chinese government’s support at home.
The German “Economic Weekly” published an article “Three Mistakes of Xi Jinping” on May 17. The author of the article interviewed Michael Schaefer, the former German ambassador to China, and Nis Grünberg, a researcher at the Mercator Center, a think tank in Berlin.
The article said that Xi Jinping’s “zeroing” strategy could not lead China out of the CCP virus epidemic and to the final stage of the epidemic.
He Qingshan, a Mercator researcher, pointed out that these are all political mistakes against Xi Jinping, who is sure that Beijing can defeat the West in this pandemic, but there has been a highly transmissible variant of the CCP virus, the Omicron variant. variable.
The author believes that Xi Jinping’s other mistake was misjudging the Ukraine war. Beijing had hoped that Russia would fully capture the attention of the United States and ease pressure on its economic and political rival, the Communist Party. But this is also a miscalculation.
In general, the mistakes will lead to questions within the Chinese Communist Party about Xi’s strategy, said former German ambassador to China Shi Mingxian. As a result, Xi will have to make compromises in the future when choosing members of the Politburo Standing Committee and filling vacancies due to age.
The article argues that Xi Jinping has blocked all the ways out of the zero policy. He said at the latest Politburo Standing Committee that the zero-clearing policy will not change. A change of course could jeopardize his re-election bid in the fall.