Does America have enough economic heft to drag the rest of the world into recovery after the Wuhan Flu the way we did after World War II? We may see a hint of our problems as China starts to reopen their economy even as their best customers in the West are still shut down. And China has a greater reliance on trade than America.
This issue argues for America to work with our Western allies--and not just with Europe--on economic revival.
And what happens to that Belt and Road Initiative (BRI, a.k.a. New Silk Road or One Belt One Road (OBOR)) with Chinese finances slumped?
In the bad scenario, a snag that BRI is likely to hit is a funding shortfall. So far, President Xi Jinping’s signature project has been powered primarily by China, whose growth rates were decreasing even before the outbreak. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is facing a daunting task revitalizing an economy that is up against serious structural challenges. Three months after disaster struck in Wuhan, the country appears to be coming round, but a V-shaped rebound is not a given and analysts continue to slash their forecasts. With the United States and Europe reeling from the pandemic, Chinese exports will take a big hit. At home, Beijing is faced with limited room to stimulate the country’s highly leveraged economy, with persistently bad news coming in.
It doesn't have to be that bad, of course. That's one scenario. And it hardly means the BRI is dead even if it is scaled back. But I did wonder about the effects of the Wuhan Flu pretty early on:
The Wuhan Flu coronavirus could really destroy any hope of expanding China's soft power via their so-called New Silk Road infrastructure project. China hoped that trade will follow their flag, but trade will not follow the flu.
And there were issues before the Wuhan Flu hit Chinese finances and credibility.
This part of that initial article cracks me up: Could Xi have "jumped the gun with an overly ambitious and assertive foreign policy agenda, including the BRI."
A Chinese leader jumped the gun and didn't anticipate the future even without considering the Wuhan Flu? Say it ain't so!
So much for that supposed long-rang planning instinct genetically part of the Chinese (yeah, that's fine to say, but calling the virus that started in Wuhan, China the Wuhan Flu is racist?). You know what I think of that myth:
My skepticism of China's renowned ability to think the long game is not new. I return to it occasionally. So I really enjoyed criticism of Chinese planning ability from China's Futures (Daniel C. Lynch, page 37):
The market mechanism does not function comprehensively to allocate resources, most notably for land, energy, and financial capital. ... Gao [Shangquan, Director of the China Society for Economic Reform] notes that local government officeholders will be in power for only a few years but will auction off land to be used over many decades. The incumbent government will want to see results from land auctions now, even if this means the land will be abused or polluted and therefore lose future value. The same is true for minerals, whose artificially low prices encourage overexploitation. At the same time, the shortsighted governments refuse to make investments in education, public health, or sustainable agriculture because the payoffs from such projects can come only many years into the future, by which time today's officeholders will have moved onto other jobs, in other locales.
This. is. awesome.
Chinese rulers unable to think about the long term and simply focused on the short run? Say it ain't so! The culture! The history! The vaguely worded fortune cookie pronouncements! Patience and perspective are in their effing genes, aren't they?
Apparently not.
The Chinese are people, like anyone else. What a radical idea.
Once we reopen the American economy, we may have leverage with China that will be desperate to get the basis of the legitimacy of one-party rule--economic growth--restarted.
Anyway, we should watch China's reopening for clues about potential problems we will face with as much urgency as we should have watched the Chinese epidemic back in December and questioned WHO's cheerleading of China's efforts.
UPDATE: The guidelines for moving forward. Are they good? Dunno. Out of my lane, as I have freely admitted. But we have to start trying. I'm pretty darned sure about that.
UPDATE: More thoughts on the decisions we need to make. Without a functioning economy, we simply can't survive.
How fast can a vaccine be made, tested well enough, and mass produced?
At some point when do people say damn the Wuhan Flu, full economic speed ahead and risk a virus disaster to avoid an economic disaster?
