It’s Not Deja Vu in China All Over Again
- Date: 16-Mar-2022
- Source: Asharq AL-awsat
- Sector:Economy
- Country:Middle East
It’s Not Deja Vu in China All Over Again
International and Arab News
It’s March. Major Chinese cities are in lockdown, manufacturing is idled, shares are plummeting, and the supply chain is scrambling to make sense of it all. It is a disturbing kind of deja vu.
Today’s Covid-19 surge in China appears to mirror the Wuhan outbreak that paralyzed the world in 2020. We have the southern city of Shenzhen in lockdown, forcing iPhone supplier Foxconn Technology Co. Ltd. to shutter plants in the Longhua and Guanlan districts while electric vehicle and battery maker BYD Co. said operations have been impacted. The entire province of Jilin (population 24 million), on the northern border with Russia, has been sequestered and that’s halted production at Toyota Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG plants. The iShares China Large-Cap fund is down 26% for the year. After Wuhan, it had plunged 22%.
But there’s a difference between now and two years ago when it comes to semiconductor and big tech supply chains. And that could be crucial to understanding how 2022 plays out — and why a closure of the so-called factory floor of the world may not be so apocalyptic.
Manufacturers don’t like to talk about it too much because doing so may annoy Beijing, but
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