Good morning. We’re covering Beijing’s scramble to quash the Omicron variant, Germany’s pivot to supplying Ukraine with heavy weaponry and a brownface controversy roiling Hong Kong. Mass testing in Beijing Faced with a growing number of coronavirus infections across Beijing, city officials are trying to test most of the Chinese capital’s 22 million residents in the hope of avoiding the pain of imposing a citywide lockdown like in Shanghai. Beijing is ordering mass testing across the city more quickly than in Shanghai, where officials started testing on a similar scale…
Tag: Beijing (China)
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…
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…
China’s GDP Data Hint at Heavy Cost of its Zero Covid Strategy
BEIJING — Faced with its worst Covid-19 outbreak yet, China has been enforcing an expanding number of mass quarantines, strict lockdowns and border controls. The measures may yet work, but official data released on Monday show they are exacting a grim toll on the world’s second-largest economy. China’s economy expanded 4.8 percent in the first three months of this year compared to the same period last year. That pace was barely faster than the final three months of last year, and it also obscured a looming problem. Much of that…
Shanghai’s Food Crisis Prompts Beijing Residents to Stock Up
Some Beijing residents have started stockpiling food in their homes in case the city imposes a lockdown, after seeing reports of food shortages and even street fights over food during a lockdown in Shanghai. Liu Chang, a 29-year-old Beijing resident who lives with his girlfriend, has stocked enough food to last three months. He is worried about possible shortages as well as price gouging in the coming months. “No matter which city it is, there will be concerns like this,” he said. “I have never experienced famine, but I have…
How Lockdowns in China Have Further Bogged Down the Supply Chain
BEIJING — China’s mounting Covid-19 restrictions are creating further disruptions to global supply chains for consumer electronics, car parts and other goods. A growing number of Chinese cities are requiring truck drivers to take daily Covid P.C.R. tests before allowing them to cross municipal borders or are quarantining drivers deemed to be at risk of infection. The measures have limited how quickly drivers can move components among factories and goods from plants to ports. Shanghai and other major Chinese cities have imposed lengthy, stringent lockdowns to try to control Covid…
Wave of Omicron Infections Prompts Lockdowns in China
BEIJING — Several of China’s largest factory cities have ordered a lockdown, halting production of Toyota cars and Apple iPhones. Theaters, cinemas and many restaurants have closed in Shanghai. The northeastern province of Jilin on Monday banned its 24 million residents from leaving the province or traveling between cities. China is grappling with its largest surge of Covid-19 infections since the coronavirus first emerged more than two years ago in central China. Sustained outbreaks in two-thirds of the country’s provinces are proving the toughest test yet of China’s zero-tolerance coronavirus…
China Becomes a Paralympic Sled Hockey Power Behind Russian Coach
BEIJING — All the Russian athletes were kicked out of the Paralympics before the Games began last week, but there is still a Russian here, and he has a chance to win a medal. Nikolay Sharshukov, the little-known Russian coach of China’s national para ice hockey team, has transformed the fledgling squad into a contender in less than five years on the job, molding it in the image of the old Soviet hockey powerhouses. Players like Shen Yifeng, the leading scorer in the tournament, crisscross in front of teammates as…
Beijing Olympic Ratings Were the Worst of Any Winter Games
An average of 11.4 million viewers watched the Beijing Olympics on NBC Universal platforms each night — the smallest prime-time audience on record for any Winter Games and well off the 19.8 million nightly viewers for the Pyeongchang Games in 2018. More than two weeks of coverage, starting with the frigid opening show on Feb. 4 and ending Sunday, drew 160 million total viewers across the NBC television channel, the Peacock streaming service and other platforms, NBC Universal said on Monday. Dramatic story lines proliferated during NBC Universal’s 2,800 hours…
Times photographers sought to…
Our Photographers’ Favorite Olympic Images Times photographers sought to capture every aspect of the Olympic Games in Beijing. These pictures were special to them. Over the last several weeks, a team of New York Times photographers sought to capture every aspect of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Gabriela Bhaskar I thought a lot about the implications of photographing women, many of whom are still teenagers, figure skating in revealing costumes as they executed incredible feats of athleticism. Nicole Schott, 25, of Germany, wore a costume with a massive cutout on…