Early COVID-19 Outbreak Halts China's "World Factory," Shaking Global Supply Chains

From late January to March 2020, Chinese governmental bodies, healthcare institutions, and tens of thousands of firms across manufacturing, logistics, and technology sectors across China mobilized to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting in late January, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic broke out in Wuhan, China, and spread rapidly. To contain the virus, the Chinese government implemented stringent travel restrictions and lockdown measures. This resulted in the closure of most factories and a halt in logistics, causing activity in China's manufacturing centers—the "World Factory"—to plummet. Consequently, global supply chains, which rely heavily on Chinese components and finished goods (from electronics and automobiles to medical supplies), suffered an unprecedented, severe shock.

This shutdown exposed the profound fragility of global supply chains over-reliant on China. Multinational corporations worldwide were forced to halt overseas assembly lines and began reassessing their production and sourcing strategies. The event significantly accelerated Western discussions on supply chain "de-risking" or "reshoring," posing a major challenge to globalization and the "efficiency-first" production model. From a conservative perspective, the incident reinforced the priority given to economic security and the need for domestic production capabilities in critical industries (especially medical and high-tech), further intensifying the logic of geoeconomic competition.