Mind Virus Lockdowns Have Accelerated Macro Trends in China’s Favor
If you don't get a mind disease, you win
China and much of east Asia have had a good crisis, relatively speaking. The recent rally in the renminbi shows currency markets are starting to acknowledge this. But it is just the tip of the iceberg. A shift in the economic balance, away from the west and towards Asia, was well under way before Covid-19. The pandemic just accelerated it.
Start by considering Beijing’s management of the outbreak. It is true that Covid started in China and the geopolitical ramifications of that are still playing out. However, case and mortality trends in the region have paled in comparison to many other parts of the world. A history of handling pandemics has helped, as has world-beating technology. But as the US and Europe continue to grapple with new waves of Covid cases, levels in much of east Asia remain low.
Better pandemic management has delivered better economic results. China is the only country among 48 to have reported a second-quarter gross domestic product number that was higher than at the end of 2019. Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea and Hong Kong are the next closest.
In contrast, Spain’s second-quarter GDP was 20 per cent below year-end, and India’s 25 per cent. East Asian countries that were able to avoid lockdowns limited damage to the services and construction sectors. August activity data from China showed the recovery broadening, with consumers finally re-engaging with the economy. And this comes without any of the direct government support that western consumers have received. The growth dividend from good Covid management will continue to accrue for these east Asian countries, even as fiscal policy packages are scaled back in the west.
Another big factor for growth has been exports, as Asia finds itself with the right product mix in the new Covid era. Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore all benefited from strong tech sectors. China has also seen strong tech exports and — ironically — a surge in exports of medical and personal protective equipment.
Many analysts said the Covid crisis would disrupt global supply chains, but the early evidence underscores how difficult transitions can be. China has been picking up export market share, not the other way around. Asia is the world’s main manufacturer of goods, and that is likely to remain the case for a long time.
The most important indicator of China’s relative strength, and perhaps its most surprising, is the resilience of its balance of payments. China’s August trade balance data showed the surplus rising again after a dip in the spring. In the middle of a huge global trade shock, this is a remarkable outcome — and even more so, given it reflects solid imports as well as strong exports.
This matters for currency markets. Indeed, the flipside of China’s resilient balance of payments is the rise in the US trade deficit. If you strip out oil, the US trade deficit is near a new record high and has been increasing significantly in recent years. The US dollar has been weakening against Asian currencies in recent months. Expect this to continue.
There are costs to China’s outperformance, of course, and most of them are geopolitical. US-China tensions have been building for some time and the relative shifts in growth and balance of payments trends through the Covid crisis will probably raise tensions further.
In the near term, Beijing is well behind on its commitments under “phase 1” of the trade deal with the US. Through August, China has made less than 40 per cent of its purchases pledged for 2020. Soyabean imports from the US — one of the more visible elements of the trade deal — have been slowing this year, even as China’s overall soyabean imports have surged. Part of this is seasonal, but there is a lot of catching up to do by year-end.
Over the longer term, China’s trade surplus with the US has grown almost 25 per cent since the start of the Trump presidency, to more than $300bn on an annualised basis. For all the talk of “winning” against China, the reality is that the current US administration has done little to curb the multiyear trend of ever higher trade deficits. Doing so is harder than it looks.
In a tight US election season, these trends may prompt more hawkish rhetoric from the Trump administration. And further out, it does not really matter who wins in November. US-China tensions are here to stay and Beijing’s successful virus management — and consequent economic resilience — will only raise the stakes in the years to come.
Source: Financial Times
actually, its NOT true that corona started in China. Recent research in waste waters found the virus was present in Europe AND in California even before it was discovered in China. better stop with the lies and anti CHina propaganda. .
Taiwan island is not a country but a Chinese province.
China technically conceded Taiwan to Japan in the Sino-Japanese war, but after WWII, the US took it back and gave it to China. However, in the late 1940s, the US’s desire to suppress Mao’s communism led the US to back rebels in Taiwan.
And so it began, the US supporting forces financially in Taiwan to give it more political clout in the South China Sea where the US was surrounding the area with bases to allow it to dominate the Pacific. It is purely an empire move by the Americans to extend their control.
Having said that, with Taiwan being controlled over 100 years by the Japanese, I sympathize with their unique culture and their right to some level of self-determination, even though it may be as a part of China. I am sure there are many different opinions about this!
Well stated.
nonsense—chiang kai chek and his defeated army hegominized Taiwan w US help after being defeated by the communists—to this day indigenous Taiwanese r relegated to 2nd tier status
I get your point, Cechas. Although the Han Chinese moved onto the island of Taiwan from maybe the 1700s, and the Chinese eventually colonized it and made it a part of China, there were quite a few indigenous people on the island who I am sure were marginalized. Perhaps is is still so. I’d better study my history on that a bit more.
As a Asian specialist, I traveled to Taiwan once a year to do the trade shows, and I have a special place for people from Taiwan, as a well-educated, respectful and peaceful people. Although I still think support from the US is purely a move by the US to try to exert as much control as they can over the Chinese and to an extent, other countries who wanted to have influence in the area (Britain, Russian, etc). The American “Ring of Pearls” bases surrounding the area have been pretty key in trying to contain China.
One day, perhaps the Chinese would like to have their own ring of pearls linking countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, etc. to their shipping routes (for oil) and set up monitoring of the US and of Central and South America (US’s Monroe Doctrine areas).
Do you think China should set up its own China needs its own “Monroe Doctrine” type of area in its part of the world?
I think that the momentum in favor of growth over the next 4 years will be on the side China and its Asian partners, as the US further stagnates, taking another 3 to 5 years to recover from the Covid. Too bad, but it did a poor job of managing it (and its own trade) and now will suffer the consequences.
I can’t help but thinking that over the next 5 years, China, Korea, etc. will move ahead in digital currencies, 5G (medical, transportation, cities, etc), AI, etc. as well as into its own chip and chip equipment manufacture. The US can’t do to Huawei what it did to kill the world’s largest chip manufacturer, Toshiba, in the 1980s, as it just doesn’t have enough leverage in China or in the world to pull it off. Instead, it will awaken China to move even faster to bypass the US and make the world its friend.