Timing of takedown of China's spy balloon 'could not be worse': China Beige Book

Shehzad Qazi, China Beige Book International Managing Director, discusses the shooting down of a suspected Chinese spy balloon.

You can watch the full interview here.

Key video highlights

00:10 On China reopening economy

00:27 On investor confidence

Video transcript

SHEHZAD QAZI: The timing of this could not be worse, I think. The obvious, of course, is what you just mentioned, especially with the Secretary of State's visit coming up. But I think from the Chinese perspective, the timing couldn't be worse because, look, they have just reopened the economy. They are out of the Spring Festival holiday period. They are supposedly over their COVID peak.

This is an economy that is getting ready by, what you hear out of Beijing, to roar back to life. And this is where they want investor confidence to go up, not to be hurt. This is not a time where they needed geopolitical tensions, but by mistake or by design, they have undone some of that, at least over the last 24-hour period, from what we can tell.