The China Thread

[Jacob]

So apparently China's population is set to decline this year, about a decade earlier than predicted.

To quote my wife "under Xi, anything is possible!"

[Josquius]

I wonder, are local authorities lying about population numbers as they lie about gdp?


In other news. Saw this video the other day on china's great green wall and its stupidity.
Sigh.
https://youtu.be/yu_qTrxTEEA

[Sheilbh]

Shops being absolutely cleared in Beijing right now an hour or two after it was announced that a neighbouring rural district had needed mass testing. Fear presumably that Beijing may soon be in a Shanghai style lockdown.

[Jacob]

I wonder if we'll be able to get a good estimate of the economic impact from the Shanghai shutdown - and any Beijing shutdown if it happens.

[Jacob]

Shanghai stock market is apparently posting major drops, with some major stocks dropping signficantly.

Talking to a friend in Shanghai, the reasons he gives are a combination of the impact of China's Covid 0 policies, the US increasing their interest rates, and fear that anti-Russian sanctions will impact Chinese companies.

[Jacob]

Street protests defying lock-downs and a lack of food in Shanghai: https://twitter.com/fangshimin/status/1520979322575548417?t=322S99YN2u9Ui0anJasDKQ&s=19

Beijing is apparently a ghost town right now.

[The Minsky Moment]

It doesn't appear that anti-Russian sanctions will have a huge impact on China because most Chinese companies seem to have decided to respect the sanctions rather than risking access to the US and Europe.

This crisis has brought out in sharp relief the fundamental contradictions between China's exterior economic and political/security policies.

[Sheilbh]

This crisis has brought out in sharp relief the fundamental contradictions between China's exterior economic and political/security policies.

I think there's something similr with the covid policies going on between China's economic policies/agenda and their continued commitment to zero covid in a world with endemic covid (but that helps support/buttress isolation/security).

[Jacob]

Wild rumours swirling on Chinese social media that Xi's been sidelined.

I rate it at 0.1% chance of being real, but still greater than zero.

[HVC]

Who would be the one sidelining him, and why now?

[Sheilbh]

Possibly not the right threat - but not big enough news for its own - but South Korea's intelligence agency has joined the NATO cyber-defence group as a participating member (like Sweden or Austria). It's the first Asian state to join.

As you can imagine China's particularly annoyed about this, but I think it's really striking the way the invasion has pushed Pacific countries like Japan, South Korea and Australia to deepen their ties with NATO (and NATO states). They've all joined in providing stuff to Ukraine and in imposing sanctions, and now this.

I think it's a pretty good thing.

[Jacob]

There volume of vague rumours coming out of China right now re: Xi continues to be high. Nothing super concrete, all of them potentially explainable, but still. They're not quite Bo Xilai vs Xi Jinping levels, but still at a noticeably higher than baseline level.

We'll see, I guess.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

There volume of vague rumours coming out of China right now re: Xi continues to be high. Nothing super concrete, all of them potentially explainable, but still. They're not quite Bo Xilai vs Xi Jinping levels, but still at a noticeably higher than baseline level.

We'll see, I guess.

Took me a minute it so to figure out that it wasn't about Xi being continuously high...

Not sure if good though, even with a replacement the CCP remains a threat to the free world. But with Xi out or curtailed the world might be lulled into complacency again re the dangers the CCP poses.

[Sheilbh]

The WHO have said China's zero covid policy is unsustainable -it's FT so paywalled but screenshot of section from journalist:


I wonder how much that is the source of elite dissatisfaction with Xi because it is clearly unsustainable, it's causing a lot of economic and social problems. It might help with isolation which is possibly why it's still so attractive to Xi but it feels impossible and counter-productive at this point.

But I've no idea how you get out of it once you're zero covid and the rest of the world is endemic.

[Barrister]

But I've no idea how you get out of it once you're zero covid and the rest of the world is endemic.

Massive vaccination efforts.

Just googled - China reports 86% fully vaxed.  But then it's a question of the efficacy of the Chinese vaccines - if they aren't all that effective (in particular against the variants) it's be hard/impossible for Xi to admit it.

Or the 86% number could be bogus as well.