Take this man away for organ harvesting:
One of China’s top statistics officials said the coronavirus outbreak has come as a “huge shock” to the economy, a rare recognition of the cost of the government’s Covid Zero strategy, but added that it will only have a short-term impact on production and people’s lives.
Sheng Laiyun, deputy chief of the National Bureau of Statistics, said the effects will recede gradually with Covid control measures and other polices, and “the economy is expected to reach an inflection point of recovery,” according to an interview with the official Xinhua News Agency published Thursday.
There are 2858 words left in this subscriber-only article.
Get your first month for $1
Yeh. yeh. When? OMICRON containment demands lockdown. To wit:
Beijing officials denied the city will be locked down and urged people not to hoard food as residents flocked to grocery stores amid growing concern the Chinese capital’s response to a persistent Covid-19 outbreak is about to be intensified.
…Speculation that Beijing will be locked down or put into a “quiet period” are rumors, Xu Hejian, a spokesperson for the Beijing municipal government said at a press briefing on Thursday. The city’s some 20 million residents don’t need to be nervous about food supply and deliveries aren’t halted, Xu said.
…Ahead of the briefing, rumors that Beijing — which has seen an escalating raft of pandemic restrictions the past few weeks — may be subject to a lockdown like fellow megalopolis Shanghai raced through the city. Queues quickly started to form Thursday afternoon at grocery stores, where shelves were being emptied of fresh vegetables and other staples.
In short, it’s already being locked down piecemeal. This is the problem in a huge swathe of the economy:
The problem is the treatment is worse than the disease:
The People’s Bank of China has guided loan interest rates lower from an already low level, Chen said Thursday at a press briefing in Beijing. He reiterated the PBOC’s pledge to use new policy tools to cushion the economy.
“The PBOC will make stabilizing growth a more prominent priority, strengthen cross-cyclical policy adjustment, and accelerate to implement policy measures already announced, especially to actively plan new policy tools,” said Chen.
The yuan extended losses, falling as much as 0.6% to a fresh low of 6.7630, after Chen’s comments. The decline came even after the central bank set a stronger-than-expected fixing for a eighth straight session on Thursday. The yield on 10-year government bonds was little changed at 2.82%.
“We think the market is taking the PBOC’s remark on guiding interest rates lower, to mean monetary easing will continue,” said Irene Cheung, senior foreign exchange strategist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group in Singapore. “By allowing the yuan to weaken since late April, we think the central bank may have included the currency as an easing tool.”
More:
The National Immigration Administration is restricting non-essential foreign travel by PRC citizens. This move makes sense in the context of doing more to prevent import of virus, but it is prompting a lot of concerns that something bigger is at play and these restrictions will stay even when the pandemic finally ends some day.
The government can not say PRC Citizens are blocked from returning to the motherland, so they have made it almost impossible by limiting plane seats back, and now if you can’t leave you can’t try to return. There have been reports in social media over last couple of weeks of passports being taken at exit control, tourist visas to other countries being torn up, even US green cards being taken.
These new measures may be especially terrible for mixed nationality families that want to leave, as PRC passport holding spouses/kids may be blocked from departing. I can not even imagine the stress and anguish that may cause, and to any of you who may have to deal with it I am sorry.
China Restricts Citizens From ‘Non-Essential’ Foreign Travel – SixthTone
The National Immigration Administration said the move was aimed at “implementing a strict and tight immigration policy” by limiting “non-essential exit activities” of Chinese citizens. The authority also said that it would strictly control the approval and issuance of entry and exit documents, such as passports.
Thursday’s announcement came nine months after the immigration authority tightened the issuance and renewal of passports for “non-urgent and unnecessary” travel. Authorities then said that they would only approve travel document applications for “necessary reasons”, such as working or studying abroad.
PRC Immigration: Restrict Foreign Travel of PRC Citizens | 高大伟 David Cowhig’s Translation Blog
Translation
国家移民管理局党组召开会议传达学习习近平总书记重要讲话精神 专题研究加强疫情防控等工作
The statement from the National Immigration Administration
Chinese border police ‘clipping’ passports of citizens as they arrive back home — Radio Free Asia
Passengers arriving in Guangzhou aboard China Southern flight CZ3082 from Bangkok on Sunday morning were all questioned individually by immigration officials at the airport, according to a social media post from one of the passengers.
Border guards wanted to know what they had been doing in the countries they were returning from, why they were coming back to China, and whether they planned to leave the country again, the post said.
Some passengers had their passport corners clipped, invalidating them for further travel, the post said.
国家移民管理局：从严限制中国公民非必要出境活动 _ 证券时报网
China is tightening the issuing of visas to its citizens in a bid to restrict overseas trips. “To strictly restrict Chinese citizens from unnecessary trips abroad,” vice minister of public security Xu Ganlu said at a ministry meeting. This is part of a broader effort to curb covid outbreaks in China.
投资移民终止了？说说广受关注的《个人境外投资相关公证的通知》 – 知乎
Ministry of Justice announced it will no longer notarize PRC ID documents for overseas investments. Zhihu post makes it sound like not complete disaster 4 overseas immigration schemes, unclear if just wishful thinking, does seem 2b another sign of closing
And thus, this, via TS Lombard:
But markets hate a falling CNY:
- Chinese competitiveness rises against all EMs just as the Fed sucks liquidity away from the same.
- Chinese domestic commodity competitiveness rises.
- Chinese rebalancing goes into reverse.
- China sells Treasuries and imposes capital controls to contain CNY falls, draining more liquidity from DMs and EMs.
- US/China Cold War 2.0 tensions rise.
This time around, Chinese domestic demand is so weak owing to OMICRON and the property crash that we have the added specter of an external crisis in that country that overshoots CNY as an export shock arrives.
The Fed tightening ends in a China crisis.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
- Which markets suffer most from a hawkish Fed? - May 24, 2022
- Stocks to get reverse bull whipped - May 24, 2022
- Wong bleats as China throws island noose over Australia - May 24, 2022
YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN
The property-driven Chinese growth era is over
Waiting for a Chinese rebound is like waiting for
China cuts interest rates on smashed economy
It's nowhere near enough but it has
It's raining China growth downgrades
More of them every day now: A slew of economists
China property prices begin to crash
Yes, it is a non-stop nightmare for the Chinese