| The Year of the Rabbit is off to an auspicious start. In the first Lunar New Year holiday since China's exit from Covid Zero, tens of millions threw caution to the wind, returning to their hometowns for family reunions, traveling to exotic locations and spending like mad to make up for the past three years of splendid isolation. More importantly, concern that a sudden travel boom would lead to a fresh wave of deaths in rural areas and trigger the spread of new variants didn't come to pass. Travelers swarmed scenic destinations and bookings of hotels, guest houses and tourist spots exceeded the same period in 2019. Almost 35,000 tourists visited the mountain ranges of Huangshan on Jan. 24, the highest daily figure during Chinese New Year since 2018. A national forest park in Hunan province had more than 60,000 sightseers the same day — a record high — with some claiming on social media they were stuck on top of a mountain for hours.  Visitors on Central Street in Macau. Photographer: Eduardo Leal/Bloomberg Macau reported a jump in casino revenue as visitor numbers surged more than 300% from last year's Covid Zero-linked doldrums. The rebound wasn't just limited to travel destinations or a tourist frenzy. The nation's box office receipts also soared during the holiday. The jubilation of reopening was mixed with tourism-related headaches. Carol Gong, who reunited with her family in Shanghai, was overwhelmed by the crowds during a trip to Disneyland. "It looked as if we were watching a zombie movie, as people lined up heel-to-heel and shoulder-to-shoulder in a meandering queue," said Gong, who waited an hour in freezing weather to get into the theme park. Still, it was worth it, she said. All in all, more than 300 million trips were made during the break, nearly 90% of pre-pandemic levels, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The resumption of travel also opened the gates for China's wealthy to leave, fueling concerns about capital flight. Watch: China Celebrated Lunar New Year as if Covid Is Gone (Video) I chose to stay closer to my home in Shanghai, booking a few nights at a hot-spring hotel in a rural part of neighboring Zhejiang province that's also close to a ski resort. I have avoided traveling domestically during the Chinese New Year in the past, but hoped this year would be different. Instead I was treated to long traffic jams and jacked-up prices for everything from taxi rides to ski lift tickets. At least I got to see fireworks. While bad for my wallet, these are all good signs for the Chinese economy. Consumption is expected to lead the rebound this year, after infections peak. There are already signs of a turnaround for services according to recent data. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Economics forecasts an acceleration in China's GDP to 5.8% in 2023 from 3% last year. There's a possible catch to all this newfound growth. Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the International Monetary Fund, said last month that China's pivot from Covid Zero is probably the single most important factor for global growth in 2023, but cautioned on what it might mean for inflation. Even Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is incorporating this in his decision making about whether to slow down the pace of interest-rate hikes. In the Zhejiang countryside, nobody seemed to care much about Covid anymore, with mask-wearing becoming more of a reflex rather than a rule. Some of my single friends wished they had stayed in the big city. Returning to their hometowns for the first time in years, they had to endure endless questions about why they weren't married and having children, as if that alone would arrest the nation's population decline. What to do with all the quarantine facilities now becoming obsolete due to the end of Covid Zero? Instead of tearing them down, like they are in Guangzhou, one local government in Shandong province is turning its poorly timed investment into temporary housing for workers. After feedback about a lack of rental accommodation in the area, authorities decided to refurbish the 20,563 square-meter facility into housing for at least 650 workers. Pleasantly named the "Skilled Talents' Condominium," the fangcang or temporary quarantine facility, is located in the Jinan Innovation Zone Intelligent Equipment City, one of 10 high-tech industrial parks in the provincial capital. Rents will be "reasonably" set based on local rates.
It may not sound like Club Med, but it sure beats camping out in the cold. China doves hoping for a kumbaya moment in US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's expected visit to Beijing are likely to be left disappointed. While Blinken's trip probably won't be as frosty as his predecessor Michael Pompeo's sojourn in October 2018 amid then-President Trump's trade war, they are unlikely to resolve the host of issues that divide them.
Complicating it further, the Pentagon revealed on Thursday that a Chinese spy balloon has been loitering over the western US. Officials said a decision was made not to shoot it down because of potential falling debris.  Antony Blinken. Photographer: MENAHEM KAHANA/Getty Images Frictions are also increasing on the tech front, despite signs that Beijing is backing away from its so-called Wolf Warrior diplomacy of the past few years. For example, the US is working with the Netherlands and Japan to wall off China's access to some advanced chip-making machinery. It's also considering cutting off Huawei from all of its American suppliers. Listen: US China Tensions Over Chips and Baidu Gets In on AI (Podcast) Bloomberg Opinion columnist Anjani Trivedi thinks the Biden administration's plan to block China on chips will backfire. Curbing Beijing's access to cutting-edge technology will cause collateral damage and isn't worth the risk, she wrote. Huawei isn't the only target. The US unveiled new sanctions aimed at blunting Russia's ability to wage war in Ukraine, including by targeting a Chinese company that allegedly provided satellite imagery to Wagner Group mercenaries. There's no indication that Beijing is aware of any role played by Spacety. The company didn't respond to an email seeking comment. Militarily, the US is set to expand its access to more Philippine bases, paving the way for greater American presence in Asia. Even the Solomon Islands has become a pawn in the chess match. Rhetorical niceties aside, the Communist Party flagship newspaper's call for China and the US to find common ground ahead of Blinken's visit is likely to fall on deaf ears. It seems like nowadays almost every major tech company is getting into the ChatGPT business. Everyone is showing off how the artificial intelligence-driven program can help them do weird stuff like writing haikus about tacos. China is also joining the bandwagon. Baidu, the nation's largest search engine company, is planning to roll out an AI chatbot service similar to OpenAI's ChatGPT, according to a person familiar with the matter. The global hype has recently spurred eye-popping rallies in China's AI-related shares and helped drive the CSI 300 Index, paced by foreign buying, to the brink of a bull market. AI firms like Beijing Deep Glint Technology and Hanwang Technology are making up for lost time after missing out on the reopening rally that took off late October. Passing fad or the future of internet search, ChatGPT has become a global phenomenon for being able to trawl vast amounts of information to generate natural-sounding text based on queries or prompts. It can write and debug code in a range of programming languages and generate poems and essays — even mimicking literary styles. That also begs the question — where was this when I was struggling in English Lit in college? Each weekday, The Big Take podcast brings you one story — one big, important story from Bloomberg's global newsroom. Subscribe and listen on iHeart, Apple and Spotify. What We're ReadingFinally, a few other stories that caught our attention: | 
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