Advertisement Workers put up fencing and police restricted who could leave a locked-down area in Beijing on Tuesday as authorities in the Chinese capital stepped up efforts to prevent a major COVID-19 outbreak like the one that has all but shut down the city of Shanghai. People lined up for throat swabs across much of Beijing as mass testing was expanded to 11 of the city’s 16 districts. Another 22 cases were found in the last 24 hours, Beijing health officials said at a late afternoon news conference, bringing the…
Month: April 2022
Shanghai Lockdown Diary: The Quest for Food Brings an Apartment Complex Together
Advertisement This is second entry in John Van Fleet’s Shanghai Lockdown Diary in The Diplomat. Read the first here. Xujiahui, Shanghai, April 26: We knew almost no one in this high-rise of 31 stories, 90 units, and more than 200 people, until March 29, the first day of our building’s lockdown. (We got a head start on the rest of the city because they found a case in our building – lucky us.) Until then, few neighbors said more than to each other than the occasional “ni hao” exchanged in…
Italian woman, 72, to walk Marco Polo’s path from Venice to Beijing
A 72-year-old Italian woman has embarked on an epic journey between Venice and Beijing by foot, following the path of the legendary merchant Marco Polo along the ancient Silk Road trade route. Vienna Cammarota left Venice, birthplace of Polo, on Tuesday, and will cover about 13,670 miles (22,000km) as she walks through 15 countries, with the aim of arriving in Beijing in December 2025. Cammarota has been an avid walker for more than 30 years and previously ventured across Tibet, Palestine, Israel, Patagonia and Madagascar on foot. Her most recent…
Four killed by female suicide bomber near China institute in Pakistan
A suicide bomber from a Pakistani separatist group has killed four people, including three Chinese nationals, in an attack on a minibus carrying staff from the Confucius Institute at Karachi University. The Baloch Liberation Army – one of several groups fighting for independence in Pakistan’s biggest province – claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bombing, saying it was the first suicide attack by a female assailant. Chinese targets have regularly been attacked by separatists from Balochistan, where Beijing is involved in huge infrastructure projects as part of its belt and road initiative.…
The China-Solomon Islands security pact and why it has raised alarm
Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (left) and China’s ambassador to the Solomon Islands Li Ming at the opening ceremony of a China-financed national stadium complex in Honiara on Friday. The stadium complex, worth a reported US$53 million, will host the 2023 Pacific Games, a first for the Solomons. Photo: AFP South China Morning Post
China’s Covid Strategy: Test 20 Million in Beijing Amid Lockdown Fears
Beijing officials urged residents to work remotely, and they suspended large-scale gatherings such as cultural performances, sports events and exhibitions. Some streets in Chaoyang, where most of the cases have been detected so far, were uncommonly quiet. Officials had earlier identified a small area elsewhere in the district, covering about a square mile of southern Chaoyang, where they ordered residents locked down or discouraged them from leaving their homes. Many Chaoyang residents appeared to be heeding such advice, with sidewalk eateries and shops left with no patrons. Concerns about a…
Xinjiang: UN team in China ahead of visit by human rights chief
A United Nations team is in China ahead of a visit to Xinjiang, in preparation for the human rights commissioner’s long sought inspection expected next month. The delegation was quarantining in Guangzhou, the South China Morning Post reported, before heading to Xinjiang. The five-member team was there “at the invitation of the [Chinese] government” said Liz Throssell, UN human rights spokesperson, the Post reported. The UN office of the human rights commissioner (OHRC) has been negotiating with the Chinese government since 2018 seeking to visit Xinjiang with “unfettered, meaningful access”…
China and the World Wait
Beijing’s waiting game A new coronavirus outbreak in China’s capital has raised concerns that Beijing may become, after Shanghai, the next Chinese megacity to put life on hold to contain the spread of the Omicron variant. Seventy people have tested positive in Beijing since Friday. In the capital’s fashionable Chaoyang district, home to most of those cases, the government initially ordered all 3.5 million residents to take three P.C.R. tests over the next five days. Bloomberg later reported that mass testing would take place in 11 of the city’s 16…
Beijing residents stock up on food amid Covid lockdown fears – video
Beijing residents have rushed to buy food, emptying supermarket shelves, as Covid-19 cases rise and fears grow that a strict lockdown could be imposed. China reported 3,266 symptomatic cases on Monday and 20,454 asymptomatic cases, with Beijing registering 19 cases, including 14 symptomatic. Some fear a lockdown similar to Shanghai’s, which is in its fourth week and has led to food shortages and delivery delays The Guardian
Worried About Economic Growth, China Promotes Coal
Advertisement China is promoting coal-fired power as the ruling Communist Party tries to revive a sluggish economy, prompting warnings Beijing is setting back efforts to cut climate-changing carbon emissions from the biggest global source. Official plans call for boosting coal production capacity by 300 million tons this year, according to news reports. That is equal to 7 percent of last year’s output of 4.1 billion tons, which was an increase of 5.7 percent over 2020. China is one of the biggest investors in wind and solar, but jittery leaders called…