Workers in protective gear enter a sealed-off residential area in Beijing. (November 12, 2022)

 The Chinese government said on Tuesday (November 22) that in the past three weeks, more than 253,000 new crown cases have been detected in China, and the average number of cases per day is still rising, which will give people trying to relax epidemic prevention measures to reduce economic losses. Officials brought more pressure.


The Chinese Communist Party pledged earlier this month to reduce the disruption caused by its "zeroing out" policy through more flexible epidemic prevention measures. But the latest wave of the virus has made that difficult again, with major cities including Beijing locking down densely populated areas, closing shops and offices and ordering factories to isolate workers from the outside world.

That fueled concerns that subdued business activity in China could hurt already weak global trade.

The state-run China News Agency quoted China's National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention as saying that the past week had averaged 22,200 cases a day, double the previous week.

"Some provinces are facing the most severe and complicated situation in three years," Hu Xiang, a spokesman for the bureau, said at a news conference. The

number of infections in China is lower than that of the United States and other major countries. But China is sticking to a "zero" policy, which means quarantining every case, while other governments are loosening travel restrictions and other controls and trying to live with the virus.

On Tuesday, the Chinese government reported 28,127 cases detected in the past 24 hours, of which 25,902 were asymptomatic. Nearly a third of those cases were in Guangdong province, an export-oriented manufacturing hub next to Hong Kong.

Global stocks fell on Monday as concerns about China's anti-epidemic measures further fueled unease over comments by Federal Reserve officials last week that they may have to raise their benchmark interest rate higher than previously expected to cool soaring inflation. U.S. stocks were mixed on Tuesday.

Fawad Razaqzada, an analyst at StoneX, a well-known U.S. brokerage and financial services company, said in a note that investors are "concerned about a drop in demand amid concerns over the emergence of more Fears of COVID-19-related lockdowns could lead to reduced liquidity in the Chinese economy."

China is the world's largest trading nation and the largest market for its Asian neighbors. Weakness in consumer or factory demand could adversely affect global producers of oil and other raw materials, computer chips and other industrial components, food and consumer goods, while restrictions on Chinese port activity could disrupt global trade.

China's economy grew 3.9 percent in the second quarter ended September from a year earlier, up from 2.2 percent in the first half of the year, but activity has started to slow.

Retail spending fell 0.5% in October from a year earlier, down from a 2.5% rise in September as cities reimposed anti-epidemic measures. Imports fell 0.3 percent, pointing to weak consumer demand, compared with a 6.7 percent rise in September.

Chinese exports fell 0.7 percent in October as consumer demand in the U.S. and Europe was also dampened as the Federal Reserve and other central banks raised rates unusually sharply to rein in multi-decade high inflation.

Business people and economists see the current changes as a step toward lifting containment measures and joining the rest of the world. But they said that the "clearing" policy may continue until the second half of next year.

Guangzhou last week announced plans to build quarantine facilities for nearly 250,000 people. It said 95,300 people from the Haizhu district were transferred to hospitals or quarantine areas.

The factory in Shijiazhuang was told to operate under "closed-loop management," in which employees stay and live in the workplace. This adds to the cost of food and living space.

Entrepreneurs are pessimistic about the current quarter, according to a survey by Peking University researchers and Ant Financial. It said its "confidence index" based on responses from 20,180 business owners fell to its lowest level since early 2021.

Economists and health experts say China needs to vaccinate millions of elderly people before it can lift anti-epidemic measures that keep most foreign tourists out.

"We don't think the country is ready to open its doors yet," Louis Loo of Oxford Economics said in a report. "We expect Chinese authorities to continue to fine-tune COVID-19 containment measures in the coming months, moving towards wider and a more comprehensive reopening.”