CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: Fighting Outbreak, China Urged Open Borders. Even Allies Are Resisting.
In Beijing and elsewhere, Chinese diplomats have pitched the crisis as a test of friendship, calling on foreign governments not to suspend travel links with China or to evacuate their citizens—measures Beijing decries as unnecessary, fear-inducing and unfriendly.
“True friendship emerges in times of adversity,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying has repeated in recent weeks.
It generally hasn’t worked. Three of the biggest U.S. airlines— American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines—have suspended passenger flights between the two countries, as have the national carriers of France, Britain, Egypt, Qatar and Vietnam, among others. More than a dozen countries have slapped entry restrictions on Chinese nationals or people who have recently been in China. . . .
Despite Beijing’s pleas, a number of countries—including governments that China counts as close partners—have put domestic concerns first.
North Korea, whose isolated government counts Beijing as a vital ally, was the first country to seal its border with China in January. Russia, another friend, closed land crossings with China and suspended visa-free travel between the two countries.
China has influence, but it fades when the chips are down.
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One series of articles that I thought were interesting were about independent measures of what is really going on in China. Here's a snip from one from today - China Is Disintegrating: Steel Demand, Property Sales, Traffic All Approaching Zero
In our ongoing attempts to glean some objective insight into what is actually happening "on the ground" in the notoriously opaque China, whose economy has been hammered by the Coronavirus epidemic, yesterday we showed several "alternative" economic indicators such as real-time measurements of air pollution (a proxy for industrial output), daily coal consumption (a proxy for electricity usage and manufacturing) and traffic congestion levels (a proxy for commerce and mobility), before concluding that China's economy appears to have ground to a halt.Much more at the link.That conclusion was cemented after looking at some other real-time charts which suggest that there is a very high probability that China's GDP in Q1 will not only flatline, but crater deep in the red for one simple reason: there is no economic activity taking place whatsoever.
We start with China's infrastructure and fixed asset investment, which until recently accounted for the bulk of Chinese GDP. As Goldman writes in an overnight report, in the Feb 7-13 week, steel apparent demand is down a whopping 40%, but that's only because flat steel is down "only" 12% Y/Y as some car plants have ordered their employee to return to work (likely against their will as the epidemic still rages).