China could see 'tough months ahead' amid COVID surge - China Beige Book CEO
shisheng ling

China Beige Book CEO Leland Miller said Thursday that he fears "tough months ahead" for China after the government's decision to abandon much of its zero-COVID policy could open the way for a new wave of the virus to sweep the country.
Speaking to CNBC, Miller also warned investors that the situation in China is unclear due to lack of data available in terms of hospitalization and number of deaths.
"China's government is not making it easy for us by claiming there's only one or two or three deaths in the last three weeks despite the fact that you have, you know, funeral homes overflooded, crematoriums overflooded," he said.
Asked about the estimates that maybe 60% of the Chinese population will have been infected in the next 90 days, China Beige Book CEO said that estimate is "plausible."
Chinese stocks saw gains in premarket trading amid hopes that easing restrictions surrounding COVID would boost the economy and allow companies to maintain normal production. 
However, the sector has been dragged down by the general slide on Wall Street. By midday trading, Alibaba (NYSE:BABA), JD.com (NASDAQ:JD), Baidu (NASDAQ:BIDU) and Bilibili (BILI) all showed losses. Kingsoft Cloud Holdings (KC) and NetEase (NTES) posted mild gains.
Earlier this week, saying it wanted to stabilize the economy in 2023 and maintain ample liquidity in financial markets in order to meet key targets, The People's Bank of China left its key lending rate unchanged for the fourth straight month. The move came amid a slowdown in economic activity due to rising COVID infections.