Battered by the worst first-quarter economic performance since 1976, the Chinese economy is now being shifted into hyperdrive. Production is already back on track to achieve Beijing's goal of making 2020 the year the country's annual Gross Domestic Product doubles in size from 2010 to $13.1 trillion.
Experts in the field say Beijing isn't just selling a "narrative" anymore. The new strategy is intended to spread chaos and confusion and incite mistrust of governments in democratic countries. According to an analysis undertaken by the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD), a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, Beijing is adopting "increasingly aggressive tactics and techniques" and rapidly ramping up its messaging on social media platforms, often cross-pollinating with Russian and Iranian disinformation efforts and amplifying conspiracy theories from fringe third-party websites.
The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is the breakthrough Xi Jinping, China's all-powerful paramount leader, has been waiting for. And he's making his move.
While the Chinese government's internal statistics are routinely questioned by outside analysts, China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology credibly reports that roughly 75 per cent of small and medium-sized businesses across the country have already resumed production. According to MIIT deputy minister Xin Guobin, even Hubei province, which had been hit hardest by the COVID-19 outbreak, is already back up and running. Roughly 95 percent of companies with annual industrial revenues of at least $4 million have resumed production.
Meanwhile, most of the world's advanced economies are being sequestered in a state of suspended animation that is expected to last at least several months, or until a vaccine for the COVID-19 disease is developed, which is expected to take at least a year.
Does anybody still believe this pandemic is not exactly what China wanted.
