Covid cases rising as People's Daily calls for patience with Dynamic zero-Covid policy; The Navigator; US tech controls
Summary of today’s Essential Eight:
Covid - Cases are rising again, new Omicron variants have entered the country, Shanghai is seeing more targeted lockdowns, and official media are making clear dynamic zero-Covid is the correct policy and is not going away. I don’t have any other word to describe the situation other than grim. The October Holiday economy was again damaged by Covid, and between the rise in cases and the Party Congress in a few days we should not be surprised if at least October, the first month of Q4, has more bad economic data.
CPC and CCDI Seventh Plenums - There has been limited coverage of the Seventh Plenum 19th CPC Central Committee, just a brief announcement, and there was minimal coverage of the Seventh Plenum of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). Both meetings are really about the final procedural preparations for the 20th Party Congress. No details of the work report or the revisions to the Party charter have leaked, though propaganda gives some good hints, and nor has any credible list of the Politburo and Standing Committee members for the upcoming 20th Party Congress. At least when it comes to personnel, everyone is still guessing.
The Navigator - Among the propaganda work ahead of the 20th Party Congress is a 16 episode TV show now running in primetime titled “领航”, which can be translated as “Navigate” or “Navigator”. I am going with “Navigator”, as it meshes with the “helmsman” talk we have seen with increasing frequency, and likely presages things we are going to see in the work report Xi delivers to the Party Congress.
New US Technology controls - The long-rumored new US restricts on exports to the PRC of semiconductor-related technologies became public Friday, and they look to be extremely damaging to PRC technology firms if they are fully implemented. I do not think the timing just before the 20th Party Congress was intentional, rather it has to do with bureaucratic jostling in the US government, but the release just eight days before the Congress is very useful to Xi as more evidence he can point to that he is correct in his push for self-reliance and specifically the quest for breakthroughs in “chokehold” technologies, with the US as the country doing the choking. There is no turning back in the US-China protracted technology war.
PRC prevails in Xinjiang vote at UN - The The UN Human Rights Council rejected a proposal to debate the human rights situation in Xinjiang, in a clear victory for the PRC.
Real Estate - October Holiday new home sales were weak while existing home sales were strong, and Caixin discovers that progress in restarting construction on stalled projects in Zhengzhou, as mandated by the local government, may not be what it seems.
Thanks for reading.
The Essential Eight
1. Covid
Cases are rising again, new Omicron variants have entered the country, Shanghai is seeing more targeted lockdowns, and official media are making clear dynamic zero-Covid is the correct policy and is not going away. I don’t have any other word to describe the situation other than grim. The October Holiday economy was again damaged by Covid, and between the rise in cases and the Party Congress in a few days we should not be surprised if at least October, the first month of Q4, has more bad economic data.
Chinese mainland reports 373 new local confirmed COVID-19 cases-Xinhua
The Chinese mainland on Sunday reported 373 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 119 in Inner Mongolia and 70 in Xinjiang, according to the National Health Commission's report Monday.
A total of 1,566 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified.
China imposes lockdowns as COVID-19 surges after holiday | AP News
The latest lockdown started Monday in Fenyang city in northern China’s Shanxi province after a preliminary positive case was found in citywide testing the previous day, state broadcaster CCTV reported.
In the nearby Inner Mongolia region, the capital Hohhot announced that outside vehicles and passengers would be prohibited from entering the city starting Tuesday. Hohhot has recorded more than 2,000 cases over about 12 days.
Shanghai Lockdown Fears Back as China Covid Cases Rise Before Party Congress - Bloomberg
The uptick has seen neighborhoods locked down and buildings barricaded with the green fences that were a feature of the financial hub’s extended shutdown earlier this year. The districts of Putuo and Changning have shut entertainment venues, while some places in Minhang have been designated as ‘medium risk’, meaning residents are restricted from leaving their compounds.
Anyone traveling to Shanghai will need a negative Covid result within 24 hours of arriving in the city and will have to do three tests in three days, officials said at a briefing on Monday.
New Omicron Variant Reaches China - Caixin
The northern Chinese city of Hohhot is battling the country’s first outbreak of new omicron subvariant, BF.7, which is thought to be more transmissible and better able to evade the immune system than other strains.
Almost all of the nearly 700 local cases found Thursday in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region came from Hohhot, according to health authorities. The regional capital has reported more than 1,800 local infections since detecting a Covid case on Sept. 28 that was later confirmed to be the BF.7 subvariant.
Omicron variant BA.5.1.7 identified in Chinese mainland - ECNS
A new highly contagious Omicron subvariant BA.5.1.7. has been identified in Shaoguan, South China’s Guangdong Province. It's the first time the variant has been detected in the Chinese mainland.
The new Omicron variant has caused successive infections in Shaoguan, according to the local government.
The latest outbreak in the city has two major transmission chains, respectively caused by Omicron variants BA.5.1.7 and BF.7, both highly infectious with fast spreading capability.
Monday People's Daily page 2 commentary under the "Zhong Yin 仲 音" byline - "Strengthen confidence and patience in the current epidemic prevention and control policies" - is a clear signal that while the government will continue to tweak and refine Covid prevention and control measures, the dynamic zero-Covid policy is not to be questioned and is not going away any time soon. - 增强对当前疫情防控政策的信心和耐心--新闻报道-中国共产党新闻网
The piece concludes with:
The epidemic has not gone away, and our "big exam" is still ongoing. Practice has profoundly enlightened us that there is no way out for "lying flat", and persistence is victory. Maintaining strategic focus, strengthening confidence in winning, insisting on scientific precision and dynamic zero-Covid, and doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control as always, we will certainly be able to safeguard and consolidate the hard-won achievements in epidemic prevention and control, and effectively safeguard people's lives and health and economic and social development.
疫情尚未远去，大考仍在继续。实践深刻启示我们，“躺平”没有出路，坚持就是胜利。保持战略定力，坚定必胜信心，坚持科学精准、动态清零，慎终如始抓好疫情防控工作，我们一定能维护和巩固来之不易的疫情防控成果，有力有效保障人民群众生命健康和经济社会发展。
Monday CCTV evening News summarized the People's Daily article on strengthening confidence and patience in the current policies - [视频]人民日报署名文章：增强对当前疫情防控政策的信心和耐心
An article on page 2 of the October 5th People's Daily also defended dynamic zero-Covid - 科学精准落实各项防疫措施 We will carry out epidemic prevention measures in a scientific and precise manner
Do a good job of normalized epidemic prevention and control, and "laying flat" is no way out. Recently, some people have seen that some foreign countries have chosen to "lie flat" in the face of the epidemic, and believe that our country's insistence on dynamic zero-Covid is too costly and should follow suit to achieve coexistence with the virus. This is an extremely wrong and irresponsible view. The Omicron variant is by no means a "big flu", and its spread is fast. For vulnerable groups, especially the elderly with underlying diseases, the severe and fatal rates are still high. Therefore, we must stick to our own path, and persistently do a good job in epidemic prevention and control.
做好常态化疫情防控，“躺平”没有出路。近期，一些人看到境外部分国家面对疫情选择了“躺平”，认为我国坚持动态清零代价太大，应该效仿，实现与病毒共存。这是极端错误和不负责任的观点。奥密克戎变异株绝非“大号流感”，其传播速度快，对脆弱人群特别是患有基础疾病的老年人群，重症率和病亡率依旧较高。因此，我们要坚持走自己的路，坚持不懈做好疫情防控
China’s Services Activity Shrinks Amid Renewed Covid Woes, Caixin PMI Shows - Caixin Global
The Caixin China General Services Business Activity Index, which gives an independent snapshot of operating conditions in services industries such as retailing and travel, fell to 49.3 in September from 55 the previous month..
“From June to August, business activities were recovering at an accelerating pace from the last round of Covid outbreaks, so production and demand expanded quickly. But in September, Covid outbreaks emerged in many areas and containment measures were tightened, impacting both services supply and demand,” said Wang Zhe, a senior economist at Caixin Insight Group.
China’s Covid Lockdowns Deal Another Blow to Consumer Spending - WSJ
Travelers in China made 422 million trips during the National Day holiday between Oct. 1 and 7, down 18% from a year earlier and 39% lower than prepandemic levels in 2019, China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism said Friday.
Tourism revenues underwhelmed by an even larger margin, dropping 26% from last year to the equivalent of about $40 billion during the holiday, which is typically one of the busiest travel seasons of the year, the official figures showed. Tourism spending was less than half of the level in 2019.
China Box Office: 'Homecoming' Dominates Depressed Holiday Week - Variety
“Homecoming” earned $21.5 million between Friday and Sunday to lift its ten-day cumulative to $163 million, according to data from consultancy Artisan Gateway. That score accounted for a 71% share of the weekend’s $30.3 million total...
Chinese state media reported that the aggregate gross over the seven-day holiday period this year was some RMB1.5 billion. That compared with RMB4.2 billion in 2021 and RMB5 billion in pre-COVID year 2019.
After two and a half years of zero-tolerance policies, Beijing has created a situation in which a very high percentage of its population has never been exposed to the virus. According to official figures, China thus far has accumulated 996,000 infections. Even taking into account the potential problem of underreporting—which is not a major concern in view of China’s centralized PCR testing system—this figure shows that only a very small fraction of its population has been infected and therefore carries some natural immunity. In fact, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) itself has acknowledged what it calls, “China’s nearly unique situation of having only vaccine-induced immunity.”
But the vaccine picture is equally concerning. Although as of March 2022, nearly 90 percent of the Chinese population had received two doses of China’s non-mRNA vaccines, studies now estimate that about six months after the administration of the second dose, the antibodies triggered by these vaccines drop to a level that is considered low or even undetectable. Because of this immunity gap, Chinese officials have reason to fear that a policy relaxation could be followed by a surge of COVID-19 cases that would quickly overwhelm the country’s health-care system.
2. CPC and CCDI Seventh Plenums
There has been limited coverage of the Seventh Plenum 19th CPC Central Committee, just a brief announcement, and there was minimal coverage of the Seventh Plenum of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI). Both meetings are really about the final procedural preparations for the 20th Party Congress. No details of the work report or the revisions to the Party charter have leaked, though propaganda gives some good hints, and nor has any credible list of the Politburo and Standing Committee members for the upcoming 20th Party Congress. At least when it comes to personnel, everyone is still guessing.
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presented a work report on behalf of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and delivered explanatory remarks on a draft report by the 19th CPC Central Committee to the 20th CPC National Congress.
Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, gave an explanation to the plenum about a draft amendment to the CPC Constitution.
Short official report on the 7th Plenum - 中国共产党第十九届中央委员会第七次全体会议在京召开 _ 经济参考网 _ 新华社《经济参考报》官方网站
中国共产党第十九届中央委员会第七次全体会议9日上午在京召开。中央委员会总书记习近平代表中央政治局向全会作工作报告，并就十九届中央委员会向中国共产党第二十次全国代表大会的报告讨论稿向全会作了说明。王沪宁就《中国共产党章程（修正案）》讨论稿向全会作了说明。
CPC top discipline inspection commission holds plenum-Xinhua
The 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the Communist Party of China (CPC) held its seventh plenary session on Friday.
Participants at the session reviewed and approved a CCDI work report to the upcoming 20th CPC National Congress, according to a communique released after the plenum.
The communique said the report will be submitted to the seventh plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, which will open on Oct. 9, for deliberation.
At the start of the so-called seventh plenum, President Xi Jinping briefed all of the roughly 370 full and alternate members of the Central Committee – the party’s inner circle of power – on the work report he will deliver when the congress gets under way next weekend.
Wang Huning, the ideology tsar and Xi’s colleague in the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, also explained to the Central Committee members the plan to revise the party’s charter, a revision that is expected to further elevate Xi’s position in the party and consolidate his policy legacy.
Xi’s report to the 20th Party Congress will set out the guiding principles of ideology and policy. It is the grandfather of generations of documents to come out over the next five years. It sets the overarching tone of his rule.
The official media site for the 20th Party Congress
3. The Navigator
Among the propaganda work ahead of the 20th Party Congress is a 16 episode TV show now running in primetime titled “领航”, which can be translated as “Navigate” or “Navigator”. I am going with “Navigator”, as it meshes with the “helmsman” talk we have seen with increasing frequency, and likely presages things we are going to see in the work report Xi delivers to the Party Congress.
10. 7 - 回望非凡十年 述录伟大变革——16集大型电视专题片《领航》即将播出 "Looking back on the extraordinary decade and recording great changes-16 episodes of large-scale TV feature film "Navigator" will be broadcast soon."
In order to welcome the victory of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Central Propaganda Department, together with the Central Party History and Literature Research Institute, the National Development and Reform Commission, the State Administration of Radio and Television, the Central Radio and Television Station, and the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, jointly produced 16 episodes of the large-scale TV feature film "Navigator".
为迎接党的二十大胜利召开，中央宣传部联合中央党史和文献研究院、国家发展和改革委员会、国家广播电视总局、中央广播电视总台、中央军委政治工作部，共同摄制了16集大型电视专题片《领航》。
The film focuses on the extraordinary and magnificent journey that the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at the core has united and led the whole Party and the people of all ethnic groups in the country in the new era, and shows the powerful truth of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in the great practice of the new era. It comprehensively reflects the historic achievements and changes that have taken place in the cause of the party and the country since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and vividly presents the happy life and good spiritual outlook of the people in the new era.
该片聚焦展现以习近平同志为核心的党中央团结带领全党全国各族人民在新时代走过的非凡壮阔历程，展现习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想在新时代伟大实践中彰显的强大真理力量，全面反映党的十八大以来党和国家事业取得的历史性成就、发生的历史性变革，生动呈现新时代人民群众的幸福美好生活和良好精神风貌。
The first episode is titled "掌舵远航 Helming the long journey". Here it is on Youtube:
The six episodes so far - 大型电视专题片《领航》_CCTV节目官网-特别节目_央视网(cctv.com)
4. New US Technology controls
The long-rumored new US restricts on exports to the PRC of semiconductor-related technologies became public Friday, and they look to be extremely damaging to PRC technology firms if they are fully implemented. I do not think the timing just before the 20th Party Congress was intentional, rather it has to do with bureaucratic jostling in the US government, but the release just eight days before the Congress is very useful to Xi as more evidence he can point to in his push for self-reliance and specifically the quest for breakthroughs in “chokehold” technologies, with the US as the country doing the choking. There is no turning back in the US-China protracted technology war.