- Complete shutdown of all businesses not related to pharmacy or hospital, probably until April 2023. This includes factories. Check out on the ground videos by https://www.youtube.com/@xiaorenwu/videos, you will see completely empty malls, subways, and streets. Not only that, you will note all the anger from normal citizens, which is only really publicly visible this year. EDIT: the shutdown is either mandated by city, or voluntarily by the merchant, since nobody is traveling out to shop in fear of contracting covid.
- Few hundred thousand small and mid size business closures/bankruptcies. China does not provide small business relief like US did, so these closures are permanent.
- 37 million covid infections per day https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-23/china-est..., millions of death per day that overwhelms the morgue. Keep in mind their vaccine is ineffective, and re-infection likely to last throughout 2023
- Market laggards like Apple finally moving out of China, and the rest of manufacturing laggards to follow
- Multinational consumer product companies moving out of China or reducing footprint
- Real estate collapse still unresolved
- Demographics collapse still unresolved
- Total debt still unresolved
- Closer alliance with Russia, and alienation from democratic countries. QUAD, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Europe all are aligning against China and Russia now.
So China's only card it can play is, being as sick as it is for at least a year more, is to be a paper tiger. and threatens with empty promise.