A New York Times article published Thursday, titled “China’s Economy Shrinks, Ending a Nearly Half-Century of Growth,” noted that the coronavirus outbreak has brought China’s “extraordinary, nearly half-century-long run of growth to an end.” Chinese officials on Friday declared that the country’s economy shrank by 6.8% during the first three months of 2020 compared to 2019, as most factories and offices across the country were shut down in January and February in a vigorous attempt to contain the virus.
“The hit to China’s economy is enormous, which everybody knew was going to happen in advance, because basically, there are two strategies for dealing with coronavirus,” Ross told host Brian Becker.
“One, which China took, was [that] the absolute priority is to save lives,” Ross explained. “You basically have to close down large parts of the economy … and then you can reduce the number of cases close to zero. In China, the average is now about six [new cases] a day, which is traceable and you can deal with,” Ross told Radio Sputnik Loud & Clear host Brian Becker.
“The second one, which I’m afraid is what has been happening in the US centrally, although I know some American cities are doing good things, is really a variant on the herd immunity,” Ross said. He explained the plan isn’t “trying to stop people dying, because in order to be able to unlock the economy safely, you’ve got to get the number of cases down to essentially close to zero … if you try to lift up the lockdown when you’ve still got thousands of cases a day … you’re going to have huge numbers of deaths.”
“The same number of people will die, but they’ll die over a longer period of time,” he said.
Although the world’s second-largest economy was severely hit, it will eventually recover, Ross pointed out, especially now that China has lifted many travel and work restrictions as the number of new cases has dwindled.
“China’s largest trading partner is ASEAN,” the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Ross noted. “They have not been extremely badly hit by the virus, because they basically copied the same policy as China … So, a large part of China's trade is going to be safeguarded. There’s going to be a tremendous hit in the US and Europe. China will therefore have to have more domestic stimulus … the economy will recover.”
For example, Vietnam, which shares a border with China, has had the shockingly low number of 268 cases of COVID-19 and, more shockingly still, zero deaths so far.
Although there are more than 708,000 cases of the coronavirus in the US, and more than 31,000 new cases were reported Friday, US President Donald Trump this week revealed federal guidelines to reopen the economy in a phased, state-by-state manner by steadily lowering restrictions on movement and social interaction.
During his daily briefing on Thursday, Trump said that “America wants to be open and Americans want to be open,” also noting that “a national shutdown is not a sustainable, long-term solution.”
The Trump administration’s response to the crisis “is an attempt to keep the big employers in business and keep making profit in the most cynical way … poor people will be hit worse,” Ross pointed out.
“The reason that there is this attempt to blame China is because the US administration completely failed, tragically, to prepare. They had two months to prepare for this. And they did nothing, and therefore tens of thousands of Americans are dead. And I’m afraid, the way it’s going, tens of thousands more Americans are going to be dead,” Ross added.
“For many many people this is proof of the superiority of the socialist system. Workers [in China] have not been massively laid off. The economy has taken a very big hit … in the West, we’re going to … [allow a] number of people to die in order that the people” at the very top may “continue to make profits,” Ross noted.
