by Gordon G. Chang, GATESTONE INSTITUTE • December 30, 2020
China’s economy is worse than it appears, and its vaccines, needed for a full recovery, are still in development, far behind America’s. In the meantime, Beijing’s response to the coronavirus, which includes the smearing of America, is resulting in China losing friends worldwide. (Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images)
- China’s economy is worse than it appears, and its vaccines, needed for a full recovery, are still in development, far behind America’s. In the meantime, Beijing’s response to the coronavirus, which includes the smearing of America, is resulting in China losing friends worldwide.
- Government stimulus is powering much of the current growth as are net exports. Yet the current “flood of defaults” in China points to widespread weakness. Beijing’s spending spree, therefore, is not sustainable, even with the help of foreign investment.
- Ultimately, the economy will recover only when China has an effective and safe vaccine. Although the Chinese have had months of head start, they are far behind America.
- China is fast losing support in capitals around the world. It is not hard to figure out why. Chinese ruler Xi Jinping deliberately spread the virus beyond China’s borders — by lying about the transmissibility of the disease and, while locking down Wuhan, forcing countries to take arrivals from China — and others are now starting to understand the maliciousness of the Communist Party. Moreover, they are learning about its venality. For instance, China this spring sold Italy medical protective gear that Italians had donated to Beijing a few weeks earlier.
The U.K.-based Centre for Economics and Business Research believes that, due to China’s superior response to COVID-19, the Chinese economy will become the world’s largest by 2028, five years earlier than previously forecast.
“For some time, an overarching theme of global economics has been the economic and soft power struggle between the United States and China,” the Centre wrote in a December 26 report. “The COVID-19 pandemic and corresponding economic fallout have certainly tipped this rivalry in China’s favor.”
No, it has not. In fact, the opposite looks to be true. The Centre’s prediction, which mimics one of Beijing’s narratives, is more than just premature. It is based on fundamentally wrong assumptions.
@ peloni1986:
Peloni, you know that the CCP got to the strength it’s at right now, using the economy card (as the US did against the Soviets by out-spending them). The US can probably bring down Xi economically as well. China is internally very weak economically. Its sychophantic party cadre are still trying to pump up the economic numbers by keeping the factory lights on and building bullet trains to nowhere. They have also been clamping down with a heavy hand against liberty and free enterprise, effectively squelching innovation. They are strangling themselves by cutting off needed imports from the US, Australia and NZ. Their only hope, is to bribe and blackmail key people in governments around the world; but the Expose Extraordinaire that is shaping up in Washington could, with God’s help, cause their whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
@ Laura:
Hi Laura,
I sympathize with your intent, but I believe there are better and more successful measures to be taken against the CCP. Nothing would unify the Chinese slave population more quickly than an attack against them. Our purposes would and will, I hope, be better served teasing the international support they enjoy away from them. Isolation to China is, I believe, the ultimate doom they fear. Their agreement described here with the EU is just an effort to kick the can (filled with their debt) down the road far enough for the CCP to further their tentacles of control around the world and throughout the EU. The CCP are masters of manipulation, but Trump is, I believe up to the task at hand. But he will always posture towards war in an attempt (and with the intent) to avoid war – open war, that is.
@ Laura:
Laura, may I call you “Doctor Strangelove”? I thank God that you are not advising our leaders.
We need to launch an EMP attack on china. They are waging war against us and its time we fought back.
China is close to defaulting on its debts to European Banks. That may be one of the reasons that the EU has made an economic deal with China. THey want the Chinese to be able to raise enough revenue so that their banks will be paid back.
But the EU, led by Germany, is signing a kind of deal!