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“China: Happiness Index 2022.” Statista, 10 May 2023, www.statista.com/statistics/1055625/china-happiness-index-united-nations/.

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China’s next Chapter: Reopening, Recovery and Beyond, www.gsam.com/content/gsam/us/en/advisors/market-insights/gsam-insights/perspectives/2023/chinas-next-chapter-reopening-recovery.html. Accessed 25 Mar. 2024.

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Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) - OHCHR, www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/ChineseHumanRightsDefendersCHRD.docx. Accessed 21 Mar. 2024.

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China’s Education Arrangements during COVID-19 Pandemic Period, internationaleducation.gov.au/international-network/china/PolicyUpdates-China/Pages/China’s-education-arrangements-during-COVID-19-pandemic-period.aspx. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.

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Gan, Nectar. “Beijing Winter Olympics.” CNN, Cable News Network, 28 Dec. 2022, www.cnn.com/2022/12/27/china/china-2022-zero-covid-intl-hnk-mic/index.html.

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“Mortality Analyses.” Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality. Accessed 22 Mar. 2024.

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“Why Foreigners Who Endured China’s Covid Lockdowns Are Now Leaving.” Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo!, finance.yahoo.com/news/strangers-started-telling-home-why-093000970.html. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

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The Games proved to be a resounding success for China’s zero-Covid strategy.

In its tightly sealed, meticulously managed Olympic bubble, the ubiquitous face masks, endless spraying of disinfectant and rigorous daily testing paid-off. Any infected visitors arriving in the country were swiftly identified and their cases contained, allowing the Winter Olympics to run largely free of Covid even as the Omicron variant raged around the world.

The success added to the party’s narrative that its political system is superior to those of Western democracies in handling the pandemic – a message Xi had repeatedly driven home as he prepared for a third term in power. It also boosted China’s confidence that its well-honed zero-Covid playbook of lockdowns, quarantines, mass testing and contact tracing could build an effective defense against highly transmissible Omicron and contain its spread. In the lead-up to the Games, these measures worked in January to tame the country’s first Omicron outbreak in Tianjin, a port city near Beijing.

As seen in the quote “ubiquitous face masks, endless spraying of disinfectant and rigorous daily testing paid-off. Any infected visitors arriving in the country were swiftly identified and their cases contained, allowing the Winter Olympics to run largely free of Covid even as the Omicron variant raged around the world.” we see how China’s policies pay off and allow success with containing the Omicron variant during one of the worlds most renowned and well-known events. This showed the foreign public that China’s policies were working.

Another pay of the excerpt is “added to the party’s narrative that its political system is superior to those of Western democracies in handling the pandemic”. This shows how the country’s policies led to a sense of relief and support from the Chinese public to the government. It gave extra support to the leader and promoted him for a next term. This decreased protests that were occurring beforehand.

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Chinese Human Right Violations (secondary)

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Chinese Human Right Violations (secondary)

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Human rights violations surged in China since the Chinese government began implementing draconian measures in response to COVID-19. These include deleting critical information online, censoring the media, punishing whistleblowing doctors, detaining and disappearing independent journalists and government critics, and kicking out foreign reporters. There have been reports of discrimination against Hubei residents and African migrants in the context of the pandemic.

Under the guise of fighting the novel coronavirus, authorities in China have escalated suppression online by blocking independent reporting, information sharing, and critical comments on government responses. Aggressive cyber policing and invasive online surveillance have played a key role in the initial government cover-up of the outbreak and hampering vital information flow, contributing to significant delay of emergency responses and loss of life.

As said in this site, China had increased surveillance and “draconian” laws. As well as foreign racism scapegoating.

The source argues that China’s policies were unnecessary and were not directed at the public’s well-being, but rather at the world-wide public perception and implementing more Chinese government power over the citizens.

The source also highlights disappearances of controversial journalist and people with varying beliefs from the Chinese government.

Overall, the source explains how China used covid as a way to gain greater control over the people and burn the government beliefs into the people.

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Confirmed

4,903,524

Death

101,056

Case Fatality

2.1%

Deaths per 100k population

7.16

The visible difference in the COVID rates between both societies is extremely large. The population to death ratio represents how the Policies were successful, even though they had slight breaches of human rights and were somewhat uncomfortable.

China does have censored information, this information could have been altered by the Chinese government

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China’s education arrangements during pandemic (tertiary)

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China’s education arrangements during pandemic (tertiary)

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In late January 2020, mainland China postponed all educational activities and the Chinese Ministry of Education (MoE) urged schools and higher education institutions to use online delivery as an alternative to face-to-face teaching. Of significance, this marks the first time online delivery has been permitted, at great scale, as part of formal education delivery in China.

In response to the call, the majority of provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions in mainland China pushed back the spring semester start date and transitioned to teaching classes online.

From April 2020, on-campus teaching began to gradually re-open for school students, starting with graduating classes in high schools (Years 9 and 12, as well as graduating classes of secondary vocational schools).[3] By 11 May, all mainland provinces/municipalities and autonomous regions had recommenced on-campus teaching for senior high schools and 26 permitted students back on campus in higher education institutions –  meaning around 107.79 million students (~39% of China’s student population from kindergarten, primary and secondary school and higher education institutions) had returned to campus. [4]

Despite Chinese strict conditions with the Zero Covid Policy, they swiftly re-opened schools for the sake of their future generations.

In the second highlighted section of the excerpt, we see how China re-opened schools, beginning with the older graduating high school classes. This represents China’s understanding and empathy. It shows how China was not completely obsessed with just controlling people in their houses and actually had a drive to make life better.

Comparing once again to the USA, China opened schools in April 2020, which is way before USA per anatomy re-opened schools.

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Man immigrates from China after COVID because of economic concerns interview (primary)

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Man immigrates from China after COVID because of economic concerns interview (primary)

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He said: "While China is potentially a large and attractive consumer market, foreign business is rethinking whether to remain or expand in the market as a result of a host of geopolitical issues."

The Covid pandemic prompted a number of companies that had relied on Chinese manufacturers to start diversifying their supply chains by seeking alternatives in other countries.

He added: "Separate from geopolitical tensions, foreign business has lost much faith in Beijing's ability to manage the business environment and economy, ranging from an unworkable reaction to the pandemic by putting into place unreasonable restrictions that adversely affected supply chains, an environment where an emphasis on national security overrides common sense, and an inability to address downward trends in China's economy such as the real property meltdown that remains in free fall."

The quote represents how Chinese “unreasonable” covid policies lead to distrust in the government. Business-people leave the country to avoid possible economic issues.

Also portrays the ill economic conditions prior to COVID-19 epidemic. Although it could have been caused by peoples distrust in china, not only the far-fetched restrictions and limitations.

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China’s Reopening and Recovery; Economics (secondary)

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China’s Reopening and Recovery; Economics (secondary)

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An earlier and faster-than-expected departure from zero-COVID policy began at the end of 2022 as major cities abolished mandatory mass testing requirements. Rules around domestic quarantine requirements and inbound travelers eased in January as China welcomed the Year of the Rabbit with Lunar New Year holiday celebrations. The reopening has occurred in tandem with a strong policy shift towards supporting growth by facilitating a consumption recovery and rebuilding consumer confidence, including measures to stabilize China’s property sector. This policy pivot led to a cyclical recovery between November 2022 and February 2023 as sentiment toward Chinese assets improved and fueled one of the best performing three-month periods on record for the MSCI China Index—albeit from a depressed starting point. A nine-day long policy event, the National People’s Congress (NPC), concluded on March 15 with policymakers re-emphasizing stability of growth as a key goal of the government and reassuring the private sector and international business community of Beijing's pro-business stance. As many aspects of China’s economy and society normalize over the coming quarters, we expect China’s growth momentum to improve.

China remains a large, growing market with a vast opportunity set. But as China reopens and its economy recovers, the country’s next chapter is set to look a lot different than the last. This means investors cannot rely on their existing game plan. As the long-term trends in China shift, it is important to see the change, understand the change, and continue to look forward. We believe investors will need to take a more nuanced view of public market exposures and add thoughtful idiosyncratic exposure to private markets with managers able to identify and execute in thematic areas with structural tailwinds. This could make portfolios more resilient as China enters its next chapter.

During China’s Lunar New Year Golden Week (January 21-27), movie box office revenues, postal package delivery, and restaurant sales all exceeded 2019 levels. There was also a V-shaped recovery of domestic air traffic and booming hotel demand.

As stated by one of the most renowned companies in the field of economics, Goldman Sachs, China is set to rebound from their economic dip during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through stock market trends to consumer predictions China is set to make even MORE money than it was originally.

The conference that took place to revitalize policies did end the zero-COVID policy. This represents China’s ability to understand the world around them and that they KNOW what is best for their people, otherwise they would have kept a lock-down. China’s re-opening success not only improved China’s economy but the economy on a global scale.

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Chinese possible spending rates: Goldman Sachs Consumer Analysis

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In 2022, the happiness index in China was the highest since the beginning of the survey series. The growth in the sense of happiness has been consistent over the years except for a short period of 2018-2019. As happiness is hard to quantify, the reasons behind the dip in the curve during that time can only be hypothesized.

The happiness index of 5.19 points in 2019, which was in the lower 50 percentile, did not seem to correlate with any of the usual suspects: the GDP growth, pollution levels, corruption or the perception of it, or even income inequality. The possible factors that could have affected people’s happiness were unemployment, insufficient social safety net, and several political issues such as tightened censorship and ongoing protest in Hong Kong. However, the country saw a surge in the sense of happiness in 2021 and 2022. Successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic that gave a greater feeling of security, fast economic recovery, and increase in the national pride could have been a few of the reasons behind the recent rising optimism in China.

Chinese happiness clearly spiked through the effects of the zero-covid policy. Chinese approach led to an economic rebound, leaving citizens with a better feeling about the whole situation. This statistic proves China’s approach WAS appropriate because it increased citizen satisfaction and happiness.

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Chinese Happiness Index: United Nations 

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To what extent were the Chinese strict covid restrictions an appropriate policy?

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To what extent were the Chinese strict covid restrictions an appropriate policy?