Tag: Beijing (China)

Photos from China’s Latest Covid-19 Lockdowns

Chin@Strategy

Less than a month after softening pandemic restrictions, China has reinstated some “zero-Covid” policies in an effort to control a new wave of infections surging across the country. Covid-19 cases have climbed almost every day since late October, and China recently recorded its first coronavirus-related death in months. In response, officials have closed businesses, resumed citywide lockdowns and reinstated frequent testing requirements. China stands alone as the only major country still going to extreme lengths to eradicate Covid-19 infections, raising questions about when, if ever, its economy might fully reopen.…

Outbreaks Test China’s Efforts to Limit the Cost of ‘Zero Covid’

Chin@Strategy

Barely a week after no longer requiring residents to show a negative Covid test to use mass transit, the authorities in the northern Chinese city of Shijiazhuang have locked down much of the city for five days as infections surge. In Shanghai, many neighborhoods have begun requiring frequent Covid tests again only days after telling residents that the tests were seldom needed. And across much of Beijing, officials have ordered schools and many businesses to close as daily cases rose over the past week to more than 1,400 and the…

Beijing Is Tackling Air Pollution. Why Can’t New Delhi?

Chin@Strategy

A decade ago, the capitals of Asia’s two largest countries both had some of the dirtiest skies in the world. On the worst days, millions were enveloped in thick gray canopies of smog that darkened the sun and besieged the lungs. Since then, one of those cities has made significant improvements. After the Chinese government declared a war against pollution in 2013, Beijing pressed ahead with a multiyear, $100 billion effort to clean its air. The authorities clamped down on factories, forced old vehicles off the road and shifted from…

China G.D.P. Data Is Unexpectedly Released After Delay

Chin@Strategy

China’s economy began to show faint signs of recovery in the last three months after stalling earlier this year, according to data released on Monday after a six-day delay during the Communist Party’s national congress. The country’s economic output was 3.9 percent higher from July through September than during the same months last year. The modest rebound in activity exceeded the expectations of Western economists, who had estimated growth of a little over 3 percent. The composition of the growth, however, was not entirely what China’s leaders have sought. While…

Beijing Turns Into a Fortress Ahead of the Communist Party Congress

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — They lounge in folding chairs, perch on traffic bollards or pace small circles to keep warm. They are stationed every 100 feet or so, keeping watch over their designated patch of Beijing street. Their bright red wind-breakers and matching armbands spell out their roles as “Neighborhood Security Volunteers.” Their mission is straightforward: guarantee that nothing disrupts an all-important Chinese Communist Party congress that begins Sunday, where the top leader, Xi Jinping, is expected to claim a third term. The volunteers, who have blanketed Beijing in recent days, are…

China’s Internet Censors Race to Quell Beijing Protest Chatter

Chin@Strategy

China’s internet censors are going to great lengths to shut down any discussion of a rare public protest condemning Xi Jinping as a “despotic traitor” and denouncing the country’s Covid-19 policies just days before the start of an all-important Communist Party congress. When a column of smoke appeared on Thursday over the Sitong Bridge overpass in the Haidian district of Beijing, it drew attention to a protester who had hung banners openly bashing China’s top leader by name and criticizing the country’s “zero Covid” policy, including one calling for “freedom…

Can Hong Kong Recover as a Global Metropolis After Pandemic Barriers?

Chin@Strategy

HONG KONG — Luxury storefronts have been replaced by pop-up shops selling masks. Whole floors of skyscrapers are deserted. Streets once crammed with locals and visitors jostling for space are quiet. This is “Asia’s World City,” Hong Kong’s self-appointed title, after more than two years under some of the world’s toughest pandemic rules. The city now wants to reclaim that cosmopolitan status by taking its biggest step toward living with Covid-19: scrapping a crushing quarantine mandate that at one point required 21 days in a designated hotel and easing restrictions…

China’s Covid Lockdowns Strand Tourists

Chin@Strategy

A few days into a two-week tour through the island province of Hainan — known as the Hawaii of China — Nicole Chan received a message from local authorities that no traveler in the country wants to see in the pandemic. On Aug. 3, a day after officials reported 11 cases of Covid-19 in Sanya, a city of more than one million in Hainan, Ms. Chan was identified by the authorities as at risk because she had been in the area that day. She was told to quarantine right away…

As China Doubles Down on Lockdowns, Some Chinese Seek an Exit

Chin@Strategy

Clara Xie had long wondered whether she might leave China one day. She chafed at the country’s censorship regime, and as a lesbian, she wanted to live in a country more accepting of same-sex relationships. Still, the idea felt distant — she was young, and didn’t even know which country she would choose. The coronavirus, and China’s stringent efforts to stop it, thrust the question to the front of her mind. Two years of travel restrictions have made it impossible for Ms. Xie, 25, to see her girlfriend, who lives…

Students Protest Covid Lockdowns at Elite Beijing University

Chin@Strategy

A group of students at a campus of China’s elite Peking University protested strict Covid-19 lockdown requirements on Sunday, arguing that the measures were poorly communicated and unfair. The government quickly moved to censor videos and photos that spread on China’s internet. The students were upset that they were unable to order food and that they were required to isolate, while teachers and their families were allowed to leave the campus freely, according to posts on a school forum and one student. The authorities tried to put up a wall…