Zhou does not shy from painting a grim picture of the Chinese economy, and his wording clearly differs from that of official documents prepared by government bureaucrats.
"Many international economic organizations such as the International Monetary Fund have issued reports downgrading global economic growth this year to as much as minus 4.9%, the worst economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s," Zhou wrote.
The article goes on: "The order log at our exporters has been greatly reduced. Production at enterprises upstream and downstream has stalled. International transportation logistics have been blocked. Raw materials are lacking and plants are unable to deliver their products. This phenomenon is putting huge pressure on our stable growth and job security."
Will economic problems cause instability in China, where the people are used to economic growth as the price for accepting Chinese Communist Party rule?
Will Xi then tighten the vice so much on political dissent--and just the fear of political dissent--to avoid the mistakes of the Soviet Union whose communist rulers wrongly believed they could open up their politics and society without losing control? Which is what CCP rulers believe?
Will that defense of the CCP monopoly on power screw China? Could be.
But that is a feature and not a bug of CCP rule, after all.
What does the CCP do then? Ease up on the people? Crack down more? Or seek a short and glorious war abroad to suppress unrest by appealing to nationalism?
I didn't have a choice to live in interesting times. Effing 2020.
UPDATE: Look out below!
The "world's biggest asset bubble" just keeps growing amid the coronavirus pandemic, The Wall Street Journal reports. ...
"The resulting asset bubble, many economists say, now eclipses the one in U.S. housing in the 2000s," the Journal writes.
Couldn't happen to nicer commie SOBs.
UPDATE: Speaking of CCP SOBs:
“The Chinese government used these conflicts and terror attacks to paint the entire population of Xinjiang as terrorists and to start a campaign of erasing the population’s cultural identity. The Chinese are erasing minority cultures from both the public and the private arena. They are criminalizing ethnic identities, erasing any trace of Islam and minority languages, arresting singers, poets, writers and public figures. They are holding about 10 percent of the minority ethnic groups in modern-day gulags.”
Decouple faster please.
