Thursday, July 16, 2020

China’s Q2 GDP Growth Crushes Washington’s Lies: Global Times Editorial
Global Times
2020/7/16 22:48:40

People walk to shop at the Chuhehan Street in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province on May 10, 2020. The city announced to disburse 500 million yuan ($71 million) worth of "consumption coupons" to residents to help restart the economy after a two-month lockdown. Photo: Li Hao/GT

China's GDP grew by 3.2 percent in the second quarter. It is a reflection of China's remarkable performance on epidemic control. Chinese authorities also announced on Thursday that cinemas in low-risk areas will reopen - the vast majority of China is under low risk right now.

The 3.2-percent growth is definitely one of the best in the world. More importantly, it was achieved during China's consolidated epidemic prevention. In this period, small outbreaks of infections appeared in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province and capital Beijing, but they were quickly put out before affecting the economy across the country.

That was totally a different story from the US, which forcibly reopened economy regardless of the actual condition, and thus lost control of the epidemic. China has developed an effective mechanism to combine epidemic prevention and economic recovery, assuring its economic activities won't lead to resurgence of the epidemic. Thanks to this mechanism, China continues to improve, and the country is on track to the sustainable revitalization of its economy.

China has done a sound exploration. It offered the world a lesson on how to maintain zero new infections while simultaneously steadily reopening business. China's relatively quick recovery provided precious impetus to the gloomy world economy. We hope Washington does not get jealous with China's achievement, but instead learn from China's strong points to offset its own weakness.

China should not be complacent. Our economy is still a long way from full recovery, with a lot of service industries - from transportation to tourism and movies - yet to be restored. Precise epidemic prevention still has room to become more effective. Only after a series of improvements will China's mechanism of epidemic prevention and production recovery be more effective and adaptive in the long-term fight against the epidemic.

The impact of the epidemic on the economy is considerable. Some companies have closed, while others have suffered from sluggish operations. Many people have felt the pain of reduced income. China needs to be able to eliminate the impact of the epidemic while achieving zero new cases, remove the excessive epidemic prevention efforts of local governments, accelerate the expansion of domestic demand, and further translate the epidemic prevention achievements into all-round economic and social prosperity. This is a big challenge.

Facts speak louder than words. China's achievements and prosperity in the fight against the epidemic will eventually crush all kinds of lies made by the US, prompting world public opinion to seriously consider: Why is China able to do all this, and how absurd is the US' blame game, and what a terrible consequence of self-deception?

The US' almost hysterical strategic suppression of China has severely impacted the international environment China is facing. China for now cannot feel complacent because it has done a better job than the US in some aspects, nor should it feel annoyed about US lies spreading across the world. To accelerate the reversal of international public opinion, we must sustain our performance, which is far better than that of the US, in the protracted epidemic fight, to crush the hooligan acts of the US.

The global economic community is quite pessimistic about the US situation in the second quarter. It's widely predicted that the US will suffer a double-digit negative growth. That figure will be released soon, and Washington will face enormous pressure. It's highly likely that the US will continue to perform worse than China in the third quarter. The gap between the two would greatly squeeze the room that Washington can make China into a scapegoat and fool the Americans.

China's most powerful tool to deal with the US is to do its own things well. China should make the Chinese people satisfied as much as possible. As long as this is achieved, the room and gimmicks that the outside world could use to attack us will be greatly reduced. We will find that the attacks from the outside are not so important. China, first of all, is a country that serves its people.

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