China Economic News

[Bibi]

I am not trying to say what China currently doing is right or wrong. Im just trying to put myself in China's shoes and think from their perspective.

I hv a ex colleague who simply refuses to take covid injection despite the fact all of us had taken it and nobody has any serious side effects. And he is 10+ yrs younger than me. He requested for wfm but was rejected. In the end he rather quit his 8 yrs iron rice bowl job and stayed at home. During those days, no co can hire a unvaccinated person wo valid reason.

Different pp hv different risk profile. So maybe Xi belongs to the play it safe camp just like my ex colleague. But China will hv to open up one day just like my ex colleague looking for a job when his savings runs out. The good thing now is, unvaccinated personal can now go anywhere here just like those vaccinated ones. So his patience has paid off. Of cos, it might hv put a dent to his net assets draining away his savings. Maybe he feels its still worth it.

[Big Toe]

The arguement of preventing serious cases/death from covid by water tight lock down even with effective vaccines readily availabe in my opinion is completely flawed.

With a large percentage of population already vaccinated, the likelyhood of the number of dealths associated with covid will be extremely low. Much lower than your just one of the very easily preventable common disease, ie lung cancer from smoking. 2nd hand smoke probably causes more death than china completely lifting all covid restrictions now.


From WHO
"More than 1 million people in China die each year from diseases caused by tobacco use. This represents 3,000 deaths a day.

China is the largest producer and consumer of tobacco in the world. There are more than 300 million smokers in China, nearly one-third of the world's total. More than half of adult men are current tobacco smokers. About one in every three cigarettes smoked in the world is smoked in China. In addition, over 700 million non-smokers in China, including about 180 million children, are exposed to second-hand smoke (SHS) at least once a day in a typical week. Exposure to SHS causes 100,000 deaths annually. "

On a side note, kudos to the government in countries that plan to completely phase out tobacco and smoking. ie New Zealand.

China with its autocratic leadership WAS VERY EFFECTIVE in preventing the spread of covid when no vaccines were available and everyone is busy figuring out what causes covid. But when vaccines were available and proven to be effective (not going to go into country of orgin) and population being most mostly vaccinated, there is no logical reason for water tight lock downs any more. Autocratic leadership is a double edged sword.

[gzbkel]

A person's decision affect only himself and just about anything is fine as long as he doesn't harm others. Policy that affects a billion people on the other hand requires a bit more thought, to put it mildly.

[CY09]

The arguement of preventing serious cases/death from covid by water tight lock down even with effective vaccines readily availabe in my opinion is completely flawed.

With a large percentage of population already vaccinated, the likelyhood of the number of dealths associated with covid will be extremely low. Much lower than your just one of the very easily preventable common disease, ie lung cancer from smoking. 2nd hand smoke probably causes more death than china completely lifting all covid restrictions now.


From WHO
"More than 1 million people in China die each year from diseases caused by tobacco use. This represents 3,000 deaths a day.

China is the largest producer and consumer of tobacco in the world. There are more than 300 million smokers in China, nearly one-third of the world's total. More than half of adult men are current tobacco smokers. About one in every three cigarettes smoked in the world is smoked in China. In addition, over 700 million non-smokers in China, including about 180 million children, are exposed to second-hand smoke (SHS) at least once a day in a typical week. Exposure to SHS causes 100,000 deaths annually. "

On a side note, kudos to the government in countries that plans to completely phase out tobacco and smoking. ie New Zealand.

If preventing widespread death is not the policy considerations, then what was in it for the Chinese government to do such an act? It has hurt economically with a number of private sector listed companies attributing their slowing revenue to COVID lockdown. Employment in China has slowed as well due to this policy action.

I am trying to wrap my head around the reason because such government actions will inevitably hurt the investment thesis for China listed companies

[specuvestor]

Policies affect a lot of people and worse still it usually has a long tail. 0.1% of a large number is a large number. To paraphrase Wen Jiabao, a small matter multiply by 1b is a big matter

Look no further than SG vs HK policies. We lost ~1k people end last year while HK lost ~100, 10X more, and they seemed to have the last laugh. But in Feb-April period, HK lost 9k people. China knows it will be 900k for them if the same thing happen to them nation wide. Policy matters and how they execute it. Contain or Engage. But it has long tail.

PS The consideration and science behind the policies is that XBB is still omicron variant so we can guesstimate it is still "ok" for those who are vaccinated or infected before, to be re-infected again, just like we are re-infected with flu. When I first mentioned this in the other COVID chat it was not well accepted that flu has 0.5m mortality every year as well.

Delta was the worst and defied the common scientific logic of more infectious means less potent i.e. real life is is not always linear science. In both Delta and Omicron the elderlies are the ones that make up most of the mortality which HK previously and China had only 50% vaccination rate. So we have to understand what is the context. If it is a brand new strain it will be more worrisome for SG and globally so watch that space.

[Wildreamz]

Yes i know flu rate is much higher as touted by Trump years ago. But if 10 such viruses come out one cant justify it by just saying the death rate for each of the 10 is lower than flu so its ok to just let the virus run rampant.

Point is people are realistic. There is a level of risk that society (including China) is willing to accept (Edit: Thank you @BigToe for posting the smoking stats in China). What's happening now in China is clearly out of the norm (even for China).

So is not approving the MRNA vaccines.

And the international community can see it. This is why Chinese stocks are trading the way they are.

[weijian]

A reminder of the posting guidelines:

- No personal attacks, name-calling or baseless accusations with regards to one's character.
- Opinions can be made but must be based on facts and must be fair to reasonable man.

If bluekelah is able to substantitate his accounts' claims with facts (data), it is postable. However, he will have to substantitate it. Thanks

BlueKelah,

You have previously crossed the red lines and I have already reminded you twice.

2nd reminder in YZJFH thread: https://www.valuebuddies.com/thread-1076...#pid166904

Your posting here has crossed the red line the 3rd time and has been moderated. This is the last warning and next violation will be temporary suspension or ban.

You have been a great contributor (and I personally have learnt a lot and made money off your contributions) and so it will be with deep regret if action has to be taken if you cross the line again. Please heed the advice.

Moderator

[Behappyalways]

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/less-...-new-study

Could it be the Chinese know the after effects of catching the disease??? Another guess is that this is one way to curb inflation in the country....

Anyway, we might never know the answer till many years later...

習近平權勢登頂 架離胡錦濤"團派清零" TVBS文茜的世界周報-亞洲版 20221029 X 富蘭克林‧國民的基金
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U6c-lBKLtIA

[weijian]

So is not approving the MRNA vaccines.

I read Walter Isaacson's book "Code Breaker" on gene editing using mRNA technology earlier this year. This new frontier of science probably has as much exciting potential as other frontiers like AI or Mars colonization. Remember the "mad scientist" who gene edited HIV-resistant babies a couple of years back? He was Chinese. Even the main rival of the protagonist in "Code Breaker" was a Chinese-born scientist who arrived to study in the US when he was a young child.

With this backdrop, It is not hard to imagine how much hope the Chinese leaders put into their own mRNA development. It could be nationalist pride that made the Chinese leaders choose their own mRNA development over pragmatism (Deng's idealogy). But my guess is that it is probably much more than that.

An approval for a foreign developed mRNA would kill their own developing mRNA ecosystem, since Fosun already signed a distribution agreement with BioNTech back in 2020 and is readily available to distribute vaccines. There are a billion people waiting for their own mRNA vaccine and so the market is there, it is just waiting for the product to arrive. All these were probably part of the calculations of the Chinese leaders back in 2020...but who knew that their own mRNA is still nowhere close to arriving on the market at the end of 2022? (hindsight is 20/20).

In the grand scheme of things, their own insistence might just turn out good 10 years down the road. As Specuvestor always reminded - policy has a long tail - whether it is good or bad.

[weijian]

As folks who went through the Spore's suite of gradual relaxation measures towards the end of 2021/start of 2022, the latest measures from China sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Of course, things may just u-turn again as well (and we also have plenty of experience in that!) but maybe George Yeo (aka Communist Party sympathizer) just might turn out right.

China eases quarantine, flight bans in Covid Zero pivot

Travellers into China will be required to spend five days in a hotel or government quarantine facility, followed by three days confined to home, according to a National Health Commission statement on Friday (Nov 11). The current rules require 10 days of quarantine in total, with a week in a hotel and then three days at home.

While the reined-in rules still comprise the most onerous virus control regime in the world, the fact that the easing comes at a time when Covid cases nationwide have surged to a six-month high, with major outbreaks in Guangzhou and Beijing, reflect an unmistakable change in President Xi Jinping’s zero-tolerance stance.

https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/governm...zero-pivot