Tag: Shanghai (China)

A loyal aide in Shanghai takes a leading role in Beijing.

Chin@Strategy

A two-month lockdown in Shanghai earlier this year looked at the time as though it might doom the political career of the city’s Communist Party leader, Li Qiang. Confined in their homes or in shoddy quarantine facilities, residents struggled to obtain food and fought with police officers clad in white hazmat suits. Despite the lockdown, Mr. Li, 63, retained the support throughout of the one man who really counts: Xi Jinping, China’s top leader. And on Sunday, Mr. Li emerged on the stage at the Great Hall of the People…

China’s ‘Absurd’ Covid Propaganda Stirs Rebellion

Chin@Strategy

“We have won the great battle against Covid!” “History will remember those who contributed!” “Extinguish every outbreak!” These are among the many battle-style slogans that Beijing has unleashed to rally support around its top-down, zero-tolerance coronavirus policies. China is now one of the last places on earth trying to eliminate Covid-19, and the Communist Party has relied heavily on propaganda to justify increasingly long lockdowns and burdensome testing requirements that can sometimes lead to three tests a week. The barrage of messages — online and on television, loudspeakers and social…

China Imposes More Covid Lockdowns, Stoking Anxiety

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In the hours before the southern Chinese city of Chengdu entered a coronavirus lockdown, Matthew Chen visited four vegetable markets in an attempt to stock up on fresh food. But seemingly the entire city had the same idea, and by the time he got to each place, most of the shelves had been stripped bare, except for hot peppers and fruit, he said. Mr. Chen, a white-collar worker in his 30s, managed to scavenge enough cherry tomatoes, meat and greens for about one day, and since then has been ordering…

China’s Covid Lockdowns Strand Tourists

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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…

Student Contest Winner: Halal Noodles in Shanghai

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This piece is one of 10 winners of our 2022 Profile Contest. You can find more here. Stephanie Chen, the author, is 16 and goes to Shanghai American School, Pudong Campus, in Shanghai. Running a Halal Noodle Shop in Shanghai By Stephanie Chen It’s lunchtime on Sunday. Sifang Beef Noodles, a little store tucked away in a gentrified corner of Pudong New Area, Shanghai, is full of hungry customers. Opened as a halal noodle store by an Indigenous Hui family, Sifang Beef Noodles has become a neighborhood staple. Haronnae Wang,…

Tesla’s Aura Dims as Its Plunging Stock Highlights the Risks It Faces

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Chinese consumers “are edgy, they’re worried about the future,” Mr. Dunne said. “It’s a double whammy that Tesla confronts in China.” Tesla shares are reacting in part to the same forces that are roiling stock markets around the world: war in Ukraine, rising interest rates, the threat of recession, supply chain chaos and surging inflation. But Tesla shares have fallen much more than other Silicon Valley giants like Apple or Alphabet, the company that owns Google. Tesla accounted for three-quarters of the electric cars sold in the United States last…

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

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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…

Shanghai Declares Victory in Covid Outbreak, but Lockdowns Continue

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Shanghai health officials said on Tuesday that the city had brought the Covid outbreak there under control, after a nearly two-month lockdown that disrupted residents’ access to food and medicine, stoked widespread public outrage and brought China’s financial center to a standstill. At a news conference, officials pledged to restart normal life as soon as possible, with a goal of reopening fully by June. Some businesses, bus lines and parks had been allowed to resume operations on Monday. Twelve trains were also allowed to leave from Shanghai’s Hongqiao train station…

Can We Still Be Optimistic About America?

Chin@Strategy

This is a season — an age, really — of American pessimism. The pessimism comes in many flavors. There is progressive pessimism: The country is tilting toward MAGA-hatted fascism or a new version of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” There is conservative pessimism: The institutions, from primary schools to the Pentagon, are all being captured by wokeness. There is Afropessimism: Black people have always been excluded by systemic, ineradicable racism. There is the pessimism of the white middle and working classes: The country and the values they’ve known for generations are being…

As Shanghai’s Covid Cases Fall, China’s Restrictions Tighten

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The Chinese authorities are tightening coronavirus restrictions in Shanghai and Beijing, heeding a message from the country’s top leader to double down on the zero-Covid strategy. In Shanghai, where residents have been under lockdown since April 1, private food delivery services were being suspended in some neighborhoods despite cases falling to a six-week low. Some residents were told not to step outside their homes, and that the government would help deliver groceries. In Beijing, where the daily case count rose to 74 on Monday, officials announced that schools would be…