China
Sometimes, it pays to be a totalitarian state. And to go first. China’s stifling of the contagion that started the trail of devastation has been miraculous, albeit achieved through the sort of state enforcement other countries would find difficult to enact. For the most populous country on Earth to go into a state of universal lockdown, with meetings or gatherings of any kind forbidden and essentially no individual movement outside of one’s own home permitted, requires a strong level of police enforcement, and the end of all but the most rudimentary personal freedoms. But it sure is working. China has been seeing the number of new cases decline, with none being home-grown — all their new infections — it reported 39 today — are from people returning home from abroad.
In the early days of the pandemic, economists were predicting a sharp decline in China’s economy followed by a sharp bounce back, a so-called V-shaped curve. But as the crisis has worsened experts are now forecasting a longer, deeper downturn, one that will take longer to escape from. But, having been the first to suffer, they will be the first to emerge from it. After the Communist Party has held the entire population of the country in its grip for the duration of this lockdown, without any major public unrest, they will come out the other side poorer, but arguably with even more political control than before. Which Beijing will use to help make a swift economic recovery, using its technological and manufacturing muscle.
