US manufacturers with ties to China applaud easing of Covid-19 restrictions
- But analysts warn that Beijing’s policy change in wake of rare street protests doesn’t necessarily signal stability or a return to the pre-pandemic status quo
- ‘We sense that a crucial corner has been turned on the road to economic recovery,’ says a business group whose members include Apple, Nike and Caterpillar
However, most are bracing for a wave of infections in China that will prevent an immediate shift back to the status quo, and some question the extent to which business-as-usual will lead to a broader improvement in bilateral relations.
Many analysts expected “scenarios where China’s just never going to reopen in a manner or in a way that will look like the China of the past, and so [the public health policy change] is huge”, said Benjamin Shobert, senior associate for international health at the Washington-based National Bureau of Asian Research.
Earlier predictions about indefinite Covid restrictions reflected “really deep concern with [China’s] leadership, about the country’s political stability and also about the economic realities that they’d be navigating if they had stayed on the path that they were on”, he said.
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China further eases pandemic restrictions in latest step towards reopening after zero-Covid
The protests in several major Chinese cities last month that prompted Beijing to change course on Covid-19 followed a meeting between the US and Chinese presidents that many saw halting a seemingly continuous decline in relations.
