{"id":2981,"date":"2020-03-25T13:26:24","date_gmt":"2020-03-25T12:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981"},"modified":"2020-03-25T13:38:29","modified_gmt":"2020-03-25T12:38:29","slug":"the-corona-strategy-dilemma-of-chinese-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981","title":{"rendered":"The corona-strategy dilemma of Chinese leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I had my doubts for years about the accuracy of Chinese statistics \u2013 a view that I also expressed many times on this page. I also used to add that real progress in accuracy and transparency will take long time to be acknowledged by neutral analysts. This may be the case also right now if we just assume that reported low numbers of new corona infections in China really should be true <a href=\"https:\/\/www.worldometers.info\/coronavirus\/\">https:\/\/www.worldometers.info\/coronavirus\/<\/a>. Anyway, one has to wonder how reality will look like when Wuhan now gradually returns to normality.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Obvious strategy dilemma<\/strong><br \/>\nIn my view, Chinese political leaders right now struggle with two possible strategies \u2013 or even a combination of these two strategies. One strategy is to show the superiority and efficiency of the Chinese system compared to the Western world, aiming at least at finding strong support by the Chinese people. Another strategical priority may be to relatively smoothly turn back GDP growth to acceptable levels in order to present China\u2019s economy as strong and clearly recovering during the Communist Party\u2019s 100<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary year of 2021. Of course, one may suggest that these two strategies are linked to each other.<\/p>\n<p>The first test in this respect will be the statistical outcome of national GDP accounts for Q1 this year. Will it be a very weak number in order to allow for a relatively good recovery later this year? Or prefer the highest decision-makers a still quite moderate slowdown in order to achieve rather a smooth downsizing of the Chinese economy during 2020 -with the objective to avoid an uncomfortable statistical slowdown of average GDP growth this year?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Compromise?<\/strong><br \/>\nMy own belief is that China\u2019s political leadership will compromise between these two strategic approaches. However, it seems to be impossible to have an idea about the preferred bias. Thus, it can be recommended to follow developments in China and political statements from there as closely as possible.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/lnu.se\/api\/media\/12178-fw350fh461cy28cw350ch350\" alt=\"\" width=\"110\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Hubert Fromlet<\/em><\/strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em>Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University<br \/>\n<a href=\"..\/editorial-board\/\">Editorial board<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\">Back to Start Page<\/a><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had my doubts for years about the accuracy of Chinese statistics \u2013 a view that I also expressed many times on this page. I also used to add that real progress in accuracy and transparency will take long time to be acknowledged by neutral analysts. This may be the case also right now if [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":174,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13398],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-china-2"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\r\n<title>The corona-strategy dilemma of Chinese leaders - 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=2981\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The corona-strategy dilemma of Chinese leaders - China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I had my doubts for years about the accuracy of Chinese statistics \u2013 a view that I also expressed many times on this page. I also used to add that real progress in accuracy and transparency will take long time to be acknowledged by neutral analysts. This may be the case also right now if [&hellip;]\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Research\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-03-25T12:26:24+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-03-25T12:38:29+00:00\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/lnu.se\/api\/media\/12178-fw350fh461cy28cw350ch350\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Hubert Fromlet, Kalmar\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\r\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Hubert Fromlet, Kalmar\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\r\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981\",\"name\":\"The corona-strategy dilemma of Chinese leaders - China Research\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2020-03-25T12:26:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-03-25T12:38:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#\/schema\/person\/7dbc3e79d44dfa0d6bb4e1f625ad2ae5\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/\",\"name\":\"China Research\",\"description\":\"A discussion forum on emerging markets, mainly China  \u2013                                          from a macro, micro, institutional and corporate angle.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/#\/schema\/person\/7dbc3e79d44dfa0d6bb4e1f625ad2ae5\",\"name\":\"Hubert Fromlet, Kalmar\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?author=174\"}]}<\/script>\r\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The corona-strategy dilemma of Chinese leaders - China Research","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blogg.lnu.se\/china-research\/?p=2981","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The corona-strategy dilemma of Chinese leaders - China Research","og_description":"I had my doubts for years about the accuracy of Chinese statistics \u2013 a view that I also expressed many times on this page. 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