I'm serious. It could be 4D Chess.
So why might China be going back into "pandemic" mode now? I think it has something to do with the Ukraine-Russia conflict. The United States has been directing bellicose rhetoric against China, threatening severe penalties if China dares to assist Russia in any shape or form. Former CIA-agent turned State Department spokesman Ned Price warned that the United States will not “stand by” if the Chinese Communist Party makes any effort to “bail Russia out.” Additionally, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan stated that “the U.S. would not just allow Beijing to undermine U.S. and international sanctions against Russia.”
Thus far, all of this blustering from the United States State Department has not intimidated China. China has continued to maintain that it will stay neutral with regards to the Ukraine-Russia situation, while also suggesting that the United States should reflect on its leading role in instigating the conflict. But in the case that the unstable and mercurial U.S. regime actually wants to punish China, the Far East titan has put itself in position to ward off Western aggression via this new lockdown.
By pivoting back to Covid and going back into lockdown mode, China will disrupt the world market and negatively impact the global supply chain. As a vital and omnipresent player in the world economy, major perturbations in Chinese commerce will inevitably injure key trade partners like the United States. America is already suffering from rapid inflation and soaring gas prices and the lockdown in China is going to make things worse. To get straight to the point, China is waging an indirect defensive economic battle against the United States and other Western powers while maintaining a fragile status quo with Russia.
As a result of this shift, launching some sort of economic attack against the 2nd largest economy in the world would be suicidal. Simply put, it would be insane and impractical. As a case in point, China is locking down Shenzhen, which is one of its key economic centers. Shenzhen, which has a population of 17.5 million residents, is located in Guangdong, the manufacturing powerhouse province of China, which has a gross domestic product of $1.96 trillion. This province, which houses large global corporations such as Tencent accounts for 11% of China’s economy. Shenzhen also supplies the United states with Apple iPhones and other important products. Chang Shu, the Chief Asia Economist for Bloomberg Economics stated:
“This lockdown will hit output in key industries such as tech and machinery that feed into global supply chains.”
Tuuli McCully head of Asia-Pacific economics at Scotiabank in Canada had the following to say:
“Given that China is a major global manufacturing hub and one of the most important links in global supply chains, the country’s Covid policy can have notable spillovers to its trading partners’ activity and the global economy.”
There is no doubt that shutting down this region will have a massive ripple effect on the world stage. Moreover, some U.S. officials are expecting a major reduction in imports coming in from China at major seaports such as the ones in California. About "20% of the cargo coming into the busiest container gateways" in the U.S. is estimated to be from the Shenzhen region. According to a spokesman for the Port of Los Angeles,
“A China slowdown would exacerbate the risk of stagflation and global supply chain problems.”
These factors will likely deter the West from enacting economic sanctions or exploring other forms of increased bellicosity towards the powerful nation of China. Taking such reckless actions, under these circumstances, would be nothing short of an act of suicide. The Chinese are very intelligent and cunning people and they are totally capable of this sort of 4-D chess. Quite frankly, I would be more surprised if they were truly having a lockdown-worthy outbreak. We’ll see what happens.
More Thoughts
What’s also suspicious is that China follows a “zero-covid” policy which means that as soon as one case shows up, that case is isolated and all potential contacts are also placed into quarantine. With such a stringent strategy in place, there should be, in theory, no outbreaks. Furthermore, China has been distributing its own version of the Covid-19 shot, which they call the Sinopharm BIBP COVID-19 vaccine. As of mid-March, 87.9% of the Chinese population of over 1.4 billion people has been “fully vaccinated.” Put another way, over 1 billion Chinese citizens have been jabbed with the "antidote." So, let’s see. In spite of a crazy “zero-covid” policy and an extreme vaccine regimen, there is a massive elevation in Covid-19 cases in China all of a sudden. Okay. I have my own beliefs about the coronavirus vaccines. I don’t think they work. But if you think that the vaccines work, which I’m sure many Chinese citizens do, then this insane elevation in cases in tandem with the brutal reimposition of medical martial law would indicate that the vaccination campaign in China was, and continues to be, pointless.
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