When the dust settles on the coming economic snapback, China’s chronic growth problems are likely to resurface with a vengeance.
Spring Festival travelers waiting at Hongqiao Railway Station, Shanghai, January 7, 2023. Credit: Imaginechina via AP Images
Long critical of Chinese censorship and Communist Party verbiage, world financial markets have enthusiastically embraced Beijing’s spin heralding a powerful post-Zero Covid reopening. Western media are similarly enthusiastic. In a breathless recent cover story, The Economist concluded that “China’s reopening will be the biggest economic event of 2023.” Just like that, the perfect storm is apparently about to turn into a beautiful day.
Proponents of the reopening play concede that there will be some bumps in the road as China works through the near-term difficulties that have arisen from the wholesale abandonment of an absurdly impractical zero-Covid policy. But both Beijing and the broad consensus of investors are more than willing to ignore these bumps.
Never mind that we have no idea of how to dimension the bumps. To the displeasure of the World Health Organization, we are being asked to swallow this dramatic about-face on policy&nbs
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