sfgiants13

True. As long as cases were low the chances of them opening were slim but now that Japan has spiked I have a feeling they'll start to loosen up once it comes back down. Purely my opinion of course but you can't close down indefinitely. Even browsing some of the social media sites public opinion is starting to change. I've seen a lot of Koreans that are not pleased that they still have to wear a mask everywhere. Really hoping this is the year places start to open. Maybe the WHO coming out will nudge them but time will tell.

stupidhead

It's an election year in Korea. Could go either way.

Unfortunately I don't see Taiwan reopening anytime soon.

m.y

Only 23% of Japanese hold passports, so I don't think Japanese government will loosen up travel restrictions just to satisfy the needs of a few. For Taiwan, I don't think any of the major political parties want to open up borders and people seems to be happy with the current state of mostly free of COVID. Both economies are running just fine without foreign tourists and businessmen.

nomiiiii

Yeah only 23% might hold passports but aren't those 23% the influential rich people. Surely the wealthy influential japanese/koreans want to travel more (and not everyone is super-wealthy to fly private / escape rules with impunity, but is still rich enough to weild some influence in upper class circles). Surely the rulemaking folks in these countries are itching for a european vacation soon?

stupidhead

I'm mainly waiting for Singapore and Thailand to drop all testing on arrival completely. I suppose I'll be waiting a while

m.y

The quarantine is only 6-10 days in Japan and I'm sure those who are rich/influential enough will have a luxurious quarantine experience anyways. Those who are not super-wealthy I guess wouldn't have the same political pull. Plus Asians are generally more concerned/fearful/paranoid about the virus so most are not keen to travel to countries with high case count anyways.

jcmalcolm

A new study by John Hopkins University this month confirms once again that lockdowns simply don't work and don't reduce real covid fatalities.
Amazing how some still are desperate to preserve them. To what (positive) end?? Fear? Opportunity for control (i.e. Australia and Austria)?

https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/fi...-Mortality.pdf

mtofell

Something tells me I won't find this on the front page of my local newspaper. Or, any news source for that matter.

I'd say fear and control are what run a good portion of our country. Tyrants want to control..... and, for some reason I've never been able to figure out, some people just love to have something to be scared of. The US is so safe these days that it's as if we've run out of problems. So we fabricate them. I laugh at the thought of our weak society facing real problems like our grandparents did. If you can't solve it with an app a good portion of us would be dead.

ExpatExp

Wow. I am surprised the number is so low.

Visconti

I recall about 5 years ago we did some analysis on the composition of China’s annual GDP YOY growth and found it a little alarming that construction accounted for, if I recall, about 45% of it? Compare that to the US GDP where construction is only about 5%? Some of the metrics, which were still accelerating, were quite extraordinary, e.g., available office square footage per capita, amount of multiple investment properties per capita.

In my view, the PRC views the BRI twofold. One, given the saturation of construction—the many infamous large ghost towns—it makes sense to try to replicate this early low hanging fruit growth in new markets, i.e., turn underdeveloped nations into China’s China. Two, at the same time, it’s a subtle and under the radar tool to extend China’s soft power and influence under the guise of “helping poorer nations” build.

The transformation from an emerging market economy overly reliant on construction production into one similar to ours in the West where production is primarily consumer driven—by professional services especially—will likely be a long drawn process fraught with some risks; these risks can be abated somewhat by replicating exporting what they do well—construction—while weaning off of construction domestically as they replace it with a primarily consumer economy similar to ours.

In my view, it’s a bubble and specifically a RE bubble of epic proportions. Common sense tells me that if most PRC citizens’ investments are 2nd and 3rd rental properties, whom are you going to rent to? At this point, there just simply isn’t enough cash flow (demand) to support all of the resources—that must be repaid—that have gone into building these things. The only solution to avert, in my estimation, a complete meltdown is to turn their economy into one that’s highly scalable; hence their emphasis on tech based production (semis, 5G, biotech, etc.…); or, mass immigration of highly skilled labor, which for many reasons likely will never be feasible or practical for them.

Fast forward to today, given their meteoric progress—we’ve never before seen this size of a population with this kind of velocity of rising income--which has been both remarkable and breathtaking, I think they’re about ˝ way through the transformation? And, if history is our guide, China has never really cared all that much about conquest or multiculturalism, and once they’ve finished this transition and, which is their hope, averted the bubble’s deflation with a soft landing, I don’t they place any value on Westerners' general tourism.

fransknorge

Because that study is a piece of garbage from the very beginning:
- it includes only Europe and US, all other countries are excluded
- A lockdown is defined as at least one (1) NPI mandated that restrict people possibilities. So locations which only closes down bars and nightclubs, and nothing else, are called "being in lockdown".

So basically this "study" excludes 75% of the world and compares apple to suspension bridge. And the author are aware because somewhere in the study, this is found:
In other word: the author admits their definition are poor and as a result can not find a concluding effect, in whatever direction.

jcmalcolm

This particular study was forwarded by a US Harvard educated MD /Mayo clinic who I consult with sometimes. It has been in the news. In South Africa, where I lived through the wildly overblown and severe lockdown, now it's widely accepted and acknowledged that no good came out of it and it's over -as in the UK
In the EU and US we still see some trying to justify, for reasons you suggest. Politicians (and much of the panic-media) hate to admit they were wrong.

mtofell

"only" ?? - that seem pretty relevant for most of us. I'm thinking of a study that involved lockdowns of tribal regions in Africa would REALLY be irrelevant.

NWIFlyer

Thread closed for mod review.