Why China’s post-lockdown recovery won’t work as a test case for reopening Europe and America

In China, landlords and occupiers are taking stringent measures to help workers return safely. But many of the health and safety protocols enforced in China are much more difficult to implement in economies that value privacy

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Employees eat apart during their lunch break at an auto plant of Dongfeng Honda, in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province, on March 23. Photo: AFP

Published: 11:00am, 19 May 2020Updated: 11:35am, 19 May 2020

Amid the doom and gloom of the Covid-19 pandemic, the search is on for green shoots that could provide a path out of the crisis.

As the country furthest along in the process of flattening the infection curve and restarting the economy, China is seen as an early predictor of the strength and sustainability of the post-lockdown recovery. Described by JPMorgan as Covid-19’s “first in, first out” economy, China, the country where the pathogen originated, is believed to offer a foretaste of things to come in Europe and America.

In the commercial property industry, the big advisers have been busy churning out research reports assessing the implications of China’s response to the pandemic for other countries’ real estate sectors. In a report published last month, JLL identified areas of normalisation and recovery which, it claimed, “should provide businesses and investors with a level of optimism amidst unprecedented uncertainty … across the globe”.

CBRE has been more explicit, advising its clients in a report released last month that China’s handling of the pandemic holds lessons for property markets in other countries. In a detailed account of the actions taken by the government, landlords and occupiers since the lockdown was imposed on Wuhan in January, CBRE argues that the stringency and efficacy of measures to contain the virus and facilitate the reopening of the economy deserve attention.

Some of the most important steps include aggressive sanitisation and in-store hygiene and safety measures during the lockdown, a three-colour health code on smartphones that determines when employees can safely return to work, the monitoring of workers returning from other cities, temperature screening areas and passenger density limits for lifts.

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However, these measures, while having helped China manage the pandemic more effectively than other leading economies, need to be put into context.