Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
China’s Xinjiang loosens up on COVID
Defiance of capital’s residents unwavering
Authorities in China’s western Xinjiang region opened up some neighborhoods in the capital of Urumqi on Saturday after residents held extraordinary late-night demonstrations against the city’s draconian “ZERO-COVID” lockdown that had lasted more than three months.
The displays of public defiance were fanned by anger over a fire in an apartment compound that had killed 10, according to the official death toll, as emergency workers took three hours to extinguish the blaze — a delay many attributed to obstacles caused by anti-virus measures.
The demonstrations, as well as public anger online, are the latest signs of building frustration with China’s intense approach to controlling COVID-19. It’s the only major country in the world that still is fighting the pandemic through mass testing and lockdowns.
During Xinjiang’s lockdown, some residents elsewhere in the city have had their doors chained physically shut,. Many in Urumqi believe such brute-force tactics may have prevented residents from escaping in Friday’s fire and that the official death toll was an undercount.
Officials denied the accusations, saying there were no barricades in the building and that residents were permitted to leave. Police clamped down on dissenting voices, announcing the arrest of a 24-year-old woman for spreading “untrue information” about the death toll online.
Videos of protests featured people holding the Chinese flag and shouting “Open up, open up.” They spread rapidly on Chinese social media despite heavy censorship.
Given China’s vast security apparatus, protests are risky anywhere in the country, but they are extraordinary in Xinjiang, which for years has been the target of a brutal security crackdown. A huge number of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim minorities have been swept into a vast network of camps and prisons, instilling fear that grips the region to this day.
In one video, which the AP could not independently verify, Urumqi’s top official, Yang Fasen, told angry protesters he would open up lowrisk areas of the city the following morning.
That promise was realized the next day, as Urumqi authorities announced that residents of low risk areas would be allowed to move freely within their neighborhoods. Still, many other neighborhoods remain under lockdown.
Officials also triumphantly declared Saturday that they had basically achieved “societal ZERO-COVID,” meaning that there was no more community spread and that new infections were being detected only in people already under health monitoring, such as those in a centralized quarantine facility.
Social media users greeted the news with disbelief and sarcasm. “Only China can achieve this speed,” wrote one user on Weibo.
In Beijing, health authorities reported 2,454 new COVID-19 cases in the past 15 hours on Saturday. Much of the city is also under lockdown.