Customers shop at an Apple store on the first day of Apple’s iPhone 14 sale in Beijing, China, 16 September 2022. MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/AP
Xu had prepared his move. At 2 a.m. on October 30, he grabbed his backpack and silently scaled the barriers surrounding his camp. He didn’t escape from a prison, but from a huge factory built as a gated city of 200,000 people near Zhengzhou in central China’s Henan Province. Then he walked 200 kilometers to reach his village. “I will never work at Foxconn again, they are inhumane,” he told the Financial Times, which reports his story. Xu fled the strict application of the zero-Covid policy, which confined much of the company’s employees to their dormitories to comply with the quarantine imposed by the authorities. An example, among other things, of the vanity of a policy that is bringing the Chinese economy to its knees when 5,000 more Covid-19 cases were listed nationwide on Monday.
Also Read: Apple: Rise in Covid-19 Cases in China Likely to Delay iPhone 14 Pro Production
This Sunday, November 6th, Apple has officially confirmed that it will not be able to ship as many of its new iPhone 14s as expected due to disruptions in its Chinese factories. That of Zhengzhou makes up 60% of the total of this model. Bad news for the group on the eve of the peak of the Christmas business. And beyond that for the entire high-tech sector in the United States, which is piling up disappointments and is a major contributor to the current stock market slump.
China on Monday, November 7, announced a 0.7% year-on-year decline in its foreign trade in October, the first drop since 2020
In fact, it is all world trade that is being disrupted by Chinese health policies. The country also announced on Monday, November 7th, a 0.7% year-on-year drop in its foreign trade in October, the first drop since 2020. The seemingly endless zero-Covid policy is of course being questioned, but not only. World trade as a whole is beginning to feel the first effects of an economic slowdown, accompanied by a wave of protectionism unprecedented in decades. Witness the colossal American plan that intends to combine the country’s reindustrialization with a desire to reduce its dependence on China and block its rise to power.
Cold shower
This situation stands in sharp contrast to the post-Covid euphoria of 2021. The American and European middle classes, finally allowed to leave their homes, had embraced a consumerism fueled by government generosity to keep the economy afloat .
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