The Washington Examiner reports:
Chinese communist officials should expect the coronavirus outbreak to get worse before it gets better, according to the Communist Party general secretary.
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“We have to be clear that the peak of the outbreak has not yet been reached,” Xi Jinping, chairman of the government, told his top party lieutenants on Friday.
Xi sounded that cautionary note as other Chinese officials projected confidence and tried to assure other governments that the crisis soon will be over. The outbreak has harmed China’s economy over the last month, as foreign and domestic companies have slowed down or halted operations in an attempt to curtail the fast-spreading virus.
“Priority should be given to ensure leading companies that are important in the global supply chain restore production and supply, maintaining the stability of the supply chain,” Xi said, according to state-run media. “It is necessary to help key export enterprises resume work and production as soon as possible.”
Chinese authorities imposed a quarantine on Wuhan and other cities in Hubei province, where the outbreak originated, leaving millions of people under surveillance and other restrictions. The coronavirus, which reportedly has infected more than 75,000 people in China, has delivered economic blows to the global auto industry as foreign companies run short of parts made on the mainland.
It certainly sounds as if China’s Communist Party fears that supply chain retooling might lead to a loss of global dependence on the human rights-violating regime.
