Lockdown-like rules continue to hamper output from China’ s factories
• Amid a complex web of workers and supply chains, authorities are unable to turn activity back on like a tap as the country’s economy awaits revival
Before October, Qiang had about 30 workers in his garment factory in the Haizhu district of Guangzhou, a district often dubbed the apparel manufacturing capital of China. After more than a month of Covid-19 lockdowns, all of them have fled, which has halted production.
“Those who went home are watching to see when to come back,” said Qiang, declining to provide his full name out of fear that he will face repercussions for speaking publicly.
“I need to restart production the moment the subdistrict gives us the green light.”
Even as China slowly pivots away from its Covid-zero policy by relaxing rules in key cities — partly in response to widespread public anger against the punishing regime — a web of relentless curbs continues to hamper factories such as Qiang’s, many of which remain in high-risk areas subject to more targeted but still lockdown-like restrictions.
Supply chains remain strained, with larger companies struggling to keep production lines humming. A recent surge in Covid-19 infections has also raised doubts about the efficacy of the so-called closed-loop system, which isolates workers in bubbles.
Easing disruption for manufacturing hubs is crucial to reviving China’s economy, which is expected this year to grow at the slowest pace since the 1970s, excluding the slump at the start of the pandemic.
Several prominent government-linked economists have recently urged authorities to shift their focus back to promoting expansion.
In late October, Haizhu was locked down because of a Covid-19 outbreak, confining workers in densely populated urban villages to cramped tenements for weeks.
Clashes with authorities ensued even before the wider anti-Covid-19 demonstrations in late November. As a way to quell discontent — and bring down cases — the government urged Guangzhou’s migrant workers to return to their hometowns, causing a mass exodus.
And then, in a pivot, Guangzhou lifted broad lockdowns in most parts of the city on November 30, replacing them with more targeted restrictions.
“The easing was so abrupt, so everyone’s in a dilemma,” said Qiang, who estimates that more than 80% of Haizhu’s workers have left. Public health workers in full personal protective equipment still control entry points into Lujiang village where his factory is, and the region’s largest fabric market nearby is still shut indefinitely, he said. “Nothing is back to normal yet.”
Deployed during Shanghai’s brutal two-month lockdown earlier this year, closed loops were sold as a way to do Covid zero while keeping China’s factories open. But even they’ve lost their effectiveness. Not only have restrictions meant companies cannot get the parts to operate under any circumstances but they are a recipe for discontent, especially in the current environment.
The shortcomings of the closed-loop system were laid bare last month when irate workers at the world’s largest iPhone factory, in Zhengzhou, about 645km south of Beijing, clashed with security staff, leading to chaos. As Foxconn Technology Group, Apple’s key device assembler, attempts to woo back workers who fled, the company does not expect full production to resume until late December or early January. Meanwhile, Foxconn has revealed a big drop in November sales.
“The closed-loop model had shown its limits,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis. “It’s clearly unsustainable, as Foxconn’s case has shown that workers are no longer ready to accept such inhuman conditions.”
Some carmakers opted to halt output over the past month instead of deploying closed-loop systems. As Chinese cities start to move away from broad, sweeping lockdowns, Volkswagen says it has resumed operations, though production may still be impaired at “very few sites”, a representative said on Monday.
Honda Motor has resumed operations at its plant in Wuhan after shutting down last week because it was unable to secure sufficient staffing.
Supply chains are still unstable, with travel between provinces and even in and out of Chinese cities still subject to multiple testing requirements, said Maximilian Butek, head of the German Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.
Nissan Motor CEO Makoto Uchida warned last week that disruptions from Covid-linked shutdowns are making it more difficult to operate, while reiterating his commitment to the Chinese market.
“Frankly, it’s worrisome,” Uchida said. “We have a lot of operational impact already.”
SHORTCOMINGS
Back in Guangzhou’s Haizhu district, work is slowly resuming in areas deemed by authorities to be at low risk for the spread of Covid-19. In the Pazhou Economic Development Zone, 51% of firms have restarted work, district officials said at a Covid19 briefing on November 29.
Ah Qi, who operates a textile factory in Haizhu’s Tuhua village, has reopened, though with only half the workers she had before the lockdown.
“Honestly, I won’t be breaking even because we rejected most of the orders that came in last month,” she said.
“We didn’t think the lockdown was going to end soon. It
lifted at a really awkward time.”
With China’s annual lunar new year break looming in late January, there is a risk that workers who headed home to avoid lockdowns will not return until after the usual weeklong holiday, the most important on the Chinese calendar. That could limit any economic upside from China starting on its path towards the easing of Covid zero.
After months of fixating almost exclusively on the goal of suppressing Covid-19, authorities
are now trying to reduce the future fallout for business. In Guangzhou’s less affected Huangpu and Panyu districts, factories have been told that they will not shut down even if there is an outbreak. Instead the government will immediately move the infected and close contacts to designated quarantine centres and disinfect the area, Panyu district deputy head Mai Jieping said at a December 2 briefing.
In Huangpu, a key industrial area in the city, the government has helped companies secure transport passes to ensure supply chain continuity during outbreaks.
While the looser measures in cities cannot be interpreted as China abandoning its Covidzero policy yet, “we see them as clear evidence of the Chinese government preparing for an exit, and trying to minimise the economic and social cost of Covid-19 control in the meantime,” Goldman Sachs Group’s chief China economist, Hui Shan, and colleagues wrote in a note. Their base-case scenario suggests
China will maintain virus restrictions until April to allow for preparations for exiting.
As part of those moves, authorities and state media have recently been downplaying the severity of Covid-19 illness, an about-turn aimed at shifting the public’s mindset on a disease they have been told for most of the past three years is likely to kill them.
“Covid-19 isn’t scary,” said Qiang. “What’s more terrifying is not being able to earn money.”
EASING DISRUPTION FOR HUBS IS CRUCIAL TO REVIVING CHINA ’ S ECONOMY, AND EXPECTED TO GROW AT THE SLOWEST PACE SINCE THE 1970S