{"id":2953,"date":"2020-02-10T09:43:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-10T08:43:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2953"},"modified":"2020-02-10T09:43:39","modified_gmt":"2020-02-10T08:43:39","slug":"chinas-political-leadership-and-the-coronavirus-how-to-handle-growth-objectives-and-statistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2953","title":{"rendered":"China’s political leadership and the coronavirus – how to handle growth objectives and statistics?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hur kommer Kinas ledare att tackla coranavirusets negativa tillv\u00e4xteffekter?<\/h2>\n

Summary \/ Sammanfattning p\u00e5 svenska
\n<\/strong>
\nDet skrivs f\u00f6r n\u00e4rvarande v\u00e4ldigt mycket om de negativa effekterna p\u00e5 Kinas ekonomi p g a coronaviruset. Detta trots att det saknas underlag till mer precisa ber\u00e4kningar. Effekter fr\u00e5n minus 0.5 upp till minus 1.5 procent av BNP n\u00e4mns s\u00e5v\u00e4l f\u00f6r det f\u00f6rsta kvartalet med \u00e5tf\u00f6ljande normalisering som f\u00f6r hel\u00e5ret 2020 – trots den helt om\u00f6jliga f\u00f6rutsebarheten. Dock f\u00f6rbises en annan intressant fr\u00e5ga: Hur kommer Kinas politiska ledare att tackla den kommande BNP-statistiken med tanke p\u00e5 det s\u00e5 sent som i januari i \u00e5r uppsatta BNP-tillv\u00e4xtm\u00e5let f\u00f6r 2020 p\u00e5 “omkring 6 procent”?<\/p>\n

—————————————-<\/p>\n

Every day we can read about revised GDP forecasts on China as a consequence of the coronavirus. Economists “introduce” themselves as medical doctors, virologists and experts on both Chinese politics and statistics – many of these economists, however, dealing with China only occasionally. For this reason, readers of these new China forecasts should be very careful and also consider possible psychological overreactions or minimization. I hereby stress the word “possible”. An unknown factor is also Africa with many Chinese working there. Hopefully, negative news from there will not reach us.<\/p>\n

Analysts neglect the political strategy conflicts
\n<\/strong>
\nThe coronavirus does not fit at all in the communist party’s economic planning process. First, there is – or should be according to previous plans – the “evaluation” of the 60 relatively detailed reform plans from the Third Plenum in 2013 which should give “significant” results by 2020.<\/p>\n

Second, in 2021 the Communist Party of China will celebrate its 100 th anniversary. A major weakening of GDP-growth the year before would certainly not be appreciated by the leaders of the strong Standing Committee and all the other highly ranked party officers.<\/p>\n

Third, the next five-year plan will start already in 2021. This means that the underlying growth trend will be even more difficult to find if the coronavirus really should cause structural or sustained psychological damage. And it is certainly not easy to recognize and determine appropriate assumptions and preconditions five years ahead in this critical and not normal year of 2020.<\/p>\n

Fourth, considerably slower GDP growth in 2020 could indeed jeopardize the official objective to double GDP in the decade to 2020. It will be a narrow race in any case.<\/p>\n

The alternatives
\n<\/strong>
\nAltogether: Looking at 2020, it appears obvious that President &:Chairman Xi Jinping and the other political top leaders around him actually cannot “afford” a clear weakening of GDP growth. Such a negative development can either be counteracted\u00a0 by further fiscal or monetary stimuli and\/or by “window dressing” of GDP statistics (as critics interpreted surprising upward-revisions of GDP last fall).<\/p>\n

It is hard to imagine that China’s political top leaders (in the Standing Committee) will remain passive without influencing GDP in a more positive direction. In my view, trying to remain relatively close to the official growth target will have political priority. But I do not want to give a GDP-growth number for 2020 at this very moment.<\/p>\n

Conclusion
\n<\/strong>
\nClearly missing the annual growth target and\/or the goal of doubling GDP would be negative or even embarrassing for China’s political leaders – unless the coronavirus really would make the situation much more critical. Consequently, keeping GDP growth for 2020 as close as possible to the “around 6-procent target” seems to be the guiding strategy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hubert Fromlet<\/em><\/strong>
\n<\/em>Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
\nEditorial board<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Back to Start Page<\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hur kommer Kinas ledare att tackla coranavirusets negativa tillv\u00e4xteffekter? Summary \/ Sammanfattning p\u00e5 svenska Det skrivs f\u00f6r n\u00e4rvarande v\u00e4ldigt mycket om de negativa effekterna p\u00e5 Kinas ekonomi p g a coronaviruset. Detta trots att det saknas underlag till mer precisa ber\u00e4kningar. Effekter fr\u00e5n minus 0.5 upp till minus 1.5 procent av BNP n\u00e4mns s\u00e5v\u00e4l f\u00f6r […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13398,10503],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china-2","category-other-emerging-markets"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\r\nChina's political leadership and the coronavirus - how to handle growth objectives and statistics? - China Research<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2953\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"China's political leadership and the coronavirus - how to handle growth objectives and statistics? - China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hur kommer Kinas ledare att tackla coranavirusets negativa tillv\u00e4xteffekter? 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