Chinese President Xi Jinping and his top officials vowed to support China’s struggling economy over the next year as the deaths of two veteran state journalists highlighted the worsening spread of COVID-19 in the capital Beijing. Xi and his leaders ended their two-day key economic work conference with a call through state media to step up policy adjustments and step up coordination to shore up an economy that analysts estimate has grown just 3% this year — their worst performance in almost half a century.
The meeting comes days after the leadership jettisoned some of the world’s toughest anti-COVID curbs, which had been championed by Xi but sparked protests unprecedented in his 10-year rule. China will strengthen overall epidemic policy coordination and ensure a smooth “transition” during the current epidemic and social order, state media reported in their reading of the conference.
“We need to insist on stability only next year, while striving for progress amidst that stability,” state media said. This “transition” to a “year of stability” has begun with viral infection spikes in Beijing, and fears are growing that COVID could engulf China’s 1.4 billion people as people benefit from eased travel restrictions during next month’s Lunar New Year. State media reported on Friday that two veteran journalists from China’s state media have died after contracting COVID-19 in the capital Beijing — among the first reported deaths since the government announced its “zero-Covid” policy on December 7. gave up politics.
Yang Lianghua, 74, a former reporter for the People’s Daily, died on Thursday, while Zhou Zhichun, 77, a former editor for the China Youth Daily, died a week earlier, financial magazine Caixin said, citing their families. China’s national health agency has not reported any official COVID-related deaths since the policy change. The latest official deaths were reported on December 3 in Shandong and Sichuan provinces.
Reports of the deaths came as China unveiled urgent plans to protect rural communities from the virus on Friday, while millions of city dwellers plan their first lunar vacation in years, which begins Jan. 22. But the excitement that has met the policy reversal that allowed them to travel has cooled amid concerns China is unprepared for the coming wave of infections and the blow it could deal to the world’s second-biggest economy.
China reported 2,157 new symptomatic COVID-19 infections on Thursday, compared to 2,000 the previous day. The official figures, however, do not paint the whole picture as testing has declined and are at odds with signs of wider spread in cities where fever clinic queues and empty pharmacy shelves are common.
China’s National Health Commission announced on Friday that it is expanding immunizations and building stocks of ventilators, essential medicines and testing kits in rural areas. It also advised travelers to reduce contact with elderly relatives. A day after the White House said the United States was ready to help if China asked for it, a spokesman for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said on Friday that Australia was “ready” to continue the COVID-19 cooperation it is helping so far the supply of medical equipment and joint research work.
Mainland China’s international borders remain largely closed, but recent decisions to halt testing before domestic travel and disable apps that track people’s travel history have allowed people to move around the country. One of China’s most populous provinces, Henan, has canceled all public holidays for health workers until the end of March to ensure a “smooth transition” as COVID restrictions ease, state media reported.
Several cities also opened new vaccination centers to encourage the public to get booster shots, state-run newspaper Global Times reported. “Go all out” was the message from China’s state wealth regulator in a statement urging state drugmakers to secure supplies of COVID-related drugs to meet the “rapid surge” in demand.
“Everyone will get it” Thanks to the government’s previously uncompromising controls, China has gotten off lightly during the pandemic compared to many other countries for the past three years, but now many Chinese have come to terms with catching the virus.
“Everyone will get it, I think,” a 29-year-old Beijing resident who asked to be identified by her last name, Du, told Reuters. Analysts fear China will pay a price for letting the virus rip through a population that lacks “herd immunity” and has low vaccination rates among the elderly.
That has hurt prospects for near-term growth, even if opening up should eventually revive China’s struggling economy. JPMorgan on Friday cut its forecast for China’s growth in 2022 to 2.8%, well below the country’s official target of 5.5% and one of its worst performances in nearly half a century.
China is preparing for “a period of transitional pain,” bank analysts said, adding they expect infections to spike after the Lunar New Year before the economy begins to recover in mid-2023. China’s top state planning body, the National Development and Reform Commission, said “arduous efforts” are needed to sustain the recovery in growth due to an adverse external environment and the global economy’s slowing momentum.
China’s yuan strengthened on Friday as traders remained optimistic that more measures to support the economy would emerge from the conference.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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