Lockdown frustration

Beijing – Millions of people in Beijing stayed home yesterday as China’s capital tries to fend off a Covid outbreak with creeping restrictions on movement.

Beijing residents fear they may soon find themselves in the grip of the same draconian measures that have trapped most of Shanghai’s 25 million people at home for several weeks.

Officials there have said the eastern powerhouse is winning its battle against the country’s worst outbreak since the pandemic began.

Yet the Shanghai lockdown has intensified, causing outrage and protest in the last major economy still glued to a zero-Covid policy.

That policy has winded an economy which just months ago had shown China was bouncing back from the pandemic.

Customs data released yesterday said exports in April slumped to their lowest monthly rate since June 2020.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China found that many of its member companies in Shanghai were still shut, with others delaying investments across the country in the face of the disruption.

In the face of “the world’s most extensive and unpredictable quarantine requirements”, chair Colm Rafferty warned the business community was “bracing for a mass exodus of foreign talent”. –