Biden is playing the China card in the America’s economic expansion
The term “misinformation” has become the latest term in contemporary politics. It usually consists of selectively selected facts that are not contextualized and lead to an opinion that could be untrue or inaccurate.
For instance, the claims of Biden administration officials that Biden administration that President Biden’s policies led to one of the fastest economic recovery ever recorded, do not consider the fact that a large portion of the expansion did not result from a well-crafted and comprehensive policy plan instead, it was due to state governments that reopened their economies following an entire year of lockdowns.
President Joe Biden’s tweet in which he compared U.S. and Chinese economic growth is a prime instance of this false assertion. Biden tweeted “Independent experts have suggested there is a chance that the U.S. economy could grow more quickly than China’s this year. It hasn’t happened since 1976.”
In its absence of any context whatsoever, Biden’s tweet implies that under the administration of Biden, U.S. economic growth will be higher than that of its closest adversaries, a nation that is known for its staggering GDP figures.
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But what Biden’s assertion does not acknowledge is that the Chinese economy has been hampered due to a lack of leadership and policies like “zero-COVID.” Therefore, America’s higher growth rates are due not to an impressive increase within China’s economy but to a significant improvement in the U.S. economy but to the weak performance of the Chinese market.
In fact, the economy of China is governed by the political decisions that are governed by China’s Chinese Communist Party and is confronting the effects from Chinese president Xi Jinping ‘s “zero-COVID” policy.
Cities like Shanghai which is a major commercial center with tens of millions of people and awash with rigid restrictions on activities and life. Shanghai is now an image of what it was before as bars are erected around the streets and quarantine personnel guard in the street, while drones circling the sky, telling residents that they must “control their soul’s desire for freedom.”
It’s not a surprise that these severe lockdowns significantly slowed the growth of China’s economy. Chinese exports and retail sales dropped dramatically after the implementation of Beijing’s lockdown policies, and between April and June of 2022 China had the lowest economic growth figures since the outbreak.
The real-world impact of the slowdown in economic growth was first revealed in the event that the CCP kept the release of its GDP statistics for a period of time prior to the 20th Party Congress, a leader change that happens each five years.
In a country that regularly proclaims its astonishing annual growth and boasts of its staggering growth rates, the reason for hiding the data is evident: Beijing failed to deliver what it pledged that it would deliver constant and significant increases in the quality of life.
This isn’t the first time that shaky economic data has been kept from the public. Beijing has been gradually withholding more and more economic data for the past several years.
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It’s noteworthy to note that the Biden administration specifically mentioned 1976 as the year of its claims regarding how the U.S. economy’s growth. In 1976, Mao Zedong, China’s most brutal dictator, was killed and the country began trying market reforms.
In 1978 the CCP declared a plan to make China more open by opening it up its doors to international commerce and opening up to the world and allowing Chinese citizens to take part in increasingly market-driven endeavors.
Beijing saw a remarkable increase in GDP especially because catch-up growth is much less difficult than growth that is on the cutting-edge. However, as China reached middle-income status the CCP saw slower growth in the economy due to the fact that progress was increasingly dependent on high-skilled service providers and technological innovations.
These reality-based economics are not the sole reason for the slowing Chinese economy. The CCP under the direction of Xi is often averse to allowing political interference to affect economic activity. China’s dictatorial system has led to radical wealth redistribution policies like Xi’s Common Prosperity agenda and central policy of planning, such as Dual Circulation that disrupt the economic system.
This has led to more and more companies considering China with suspicion as the risk of political instability is a growing threat to their profits. The shift in the business mindset coupled with disruptions to supply chains and rising cost of labor, is the main cause of the slowdown in economic growth.
On the surface the fact is that U.S. economic growth will surpass that of a significant geopolitical rival is an exciting development. However, Biden’s tweet regarding China as with all declarations from political leaders need to be viewed in contextualization.
The reality that Washington’s growth numbers are better than Beijing’s speaks of the CCP’s policy mistakes, but it does not say much about the administration’s economic achievements.
Americans should be cautious not to place their hopes on a shaky, authoritarian country, but rather the economic reality they experience in their own country.
