Zero-Covid rule smothers city
Millions of people in Beijing stayed home yesterday as China’s capital tries to fend off a Covid-19 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 rare 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 fast from the pandemic.
Customs data released yesterday said exports in April slumped to their lowest monthly rate since June 2020, as key supply chains from Shanghai to Shenzhen became knotted by restrictions.
There is also a pressing political dynamic to China’s virus response, with President Xi Jinping pegging the legitimacy of his leadership to protecting Chinese lives from Covid.
Mr Xi, who is expected to secure another five-year term as president later this year, has doubled down on the zero-Covid approach, despite mounting frustrations among the public.
In Beijing, subway stations and offices were empty during rush hour yesterday morning across Chaoyang — the city’s most populous district — after officials stepped up a work-fromhome order on Sunday over rising Covid cases.
Non-essential businesses in the district, home to 3.5 million people, were shuttered, with even the Apple store in the popular Sanlitun shopping area ordered to close after opening briefly in the morning.
Beijing has reported hundreds of infections in recent weeks, with 49 new Covid-19 infections confirmed yesterday, a relatively tiny number by international comparisons but enough to stir restrictions in the country. Some finance workers were moving into hotels near their offices, as restrictions start to shape daily life in the city of 21 million.