Very interesting. What are your thoughts on the official figures for people infected seeing as this has been changed twice?
I am reading stories suggesting that many small businesses, of which there are tens of millions, are closing, laying off staff or not paying wages. Have you any idea how prevalent that might be?
Many thanks. Take good care of yourself.
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Well I know plenty of my friends lives are essentially destroyed as their businesses are shut down and unable to open. They still have to give out salaries and so two people I know are bleeding about 600,000-1,000,000 yuan per month and, well, the damage is already done. And this is Shanghai. I can't imagine how bad it is for those in Hubei and other heavily affected areas but I wouldn't think it was good.
There will, like in the Mao era, be stimulus packages for the more essential businesses but I'm sure innumerable amounts will be left to vanish into bankruptcy... if that hasn't already happened
Thank you for the informative answer. If you have the time I have one more question. I have studied Chinese history at various levels but know little about daily life for ordinary people. If people lost their business or are laid off by a company do they receive any kind of unemployment/welfare benefits?
That's a surprisingly complicated question but in a nutshell, yes there is some form of welfare, but it depends where you were born.
The system, called Hukou, is going under a lot of changes, or attempts at changes, as it is quite... bad. Basically anyone born in the countryside can never get benefits (education, healthcare, etc) in the cities they live in and work in. That's hundreds of millions of people without benefits - it created endless human rights issues.
But yes, being 'socialist' in their own way does come with a certain robust social benefits system... its just not as equal as they'd like you to think. I'd have to look way more into it though because it's a very deep, ever-changing subject.
Thank you for your reply. It does concern me as we don't yet know the full economic fall out from the coronavirus. I wonder how the government will cope with public anger if unemployment shoots up due to the closure of small-medium businesses. I suppose time will tell on that front.