Shanghai - Page 2

Shanghai’s government announced a snap lockdown Tuesday across 9 of its 16 residential districts to allow officials to conduct mass testing for the Chinese coronavirus, Xinhua News Agency reported, adding that the movement restrictions will last through Thursday.

China’s state-run Global Times on Monday reversed a good deal of spin from Beijing by admitting that U.S. demand for Chinese goods is falling sharply enough to damage the Chinese economy. 

Cai Qi, the Chinese Communist Party secretary of Beijing, told state media Monday that the city would adhere to its “zero-Covid” policy of lockdowns and quarantines for the next five years.

Shanghai’s government reimposed lockdowns on at least eight million residents on Friday as part of a mass Chinese coronavirus testing effort, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported, noting that the movement restrictions came just one week after the Chinese financial hub lifted a 65-day lockdown order for the entire city.

The Inner Mongolian city of Erenhot imposed travel restrictions and urged residents to remain home after three consecutive days of detecting a dozen coronavirus infections, some of them asymptomatic.

China’s ruling Communist Party has reportedly ordered state-run media not to use the word “lockdown” to describe the recent easing of Shanghai’s Chinese coronavirus lockdown, the U.K.’s Guardian reported on Thursday, noting that movement restrictions continued to apply to some of Shanghai’s population.

Shanghai health officials on Thursday announced the discovery of seven new coronavirus cases, to the consternation of residents who fear the brutal two-month lockdown that ended only a day ago could be re-imposed at any time.

Shanghai officially lifted its brutal two-month coronavirus lockdown on Wednesday. The announcement was accompanied by a flurry of editorials from Chinese state media seeking to reassure nervous foreign investors that lockdowns are over for the time being.

Beijing is “gradually walking out of the shadow” of its latest Chinese coronavirus epidemic, the state-run Global Times reported on Sunday, suggesting the city may not face a total lockdown like that witnessed in Shanghai over the past two months.

China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday strove to portray an “unprecedented national video teleconference on stabilizing the economy” with over 100,000 participants held by the State Council as the Communist government putting a firm hand on the economic tiller, but it looked more like a sign of growing panic in the regime.

The leftist magazine Time published an homage to top Chinese Communist Party henchwoman Sun Chunlan, the vice-premier tasked with enforcing the nation’s brutal coronavirus lockdowns, on Tuesday, celebrating her as a feminist icon.

The Chinese Communist Party’s public security department recently pursued criminal charges against “25 rumormongers and imposed administrative penalties on 48 others” for promoting allegedly false accounts online about the Party’s anti-epidemic measures during Shanghai’s ongoing Chinese coronavirus lockdown, the state-run Global Times reported on Wednesday.

World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday repeated his organization’s judgment that China’s strategy of controlling the Wuhan coronavirus with harsh lockdowns is “not sustainable.”

Communist Party officials in charge of a Shanghai district were forced to issue a public apology on Saturday after “disinfection” tablets they recently planted throughout the district emitted toxic fumes which caused several locals to become ill.

Shanghai officials announced in a press conference on Sunday that they would begin to lift the month-long total lockdown of China’s largest city “in phases,” claiming only some businesses would enjoy the right to function and leaving open the possibility for a renewed mass house arrest order at any time.

China’s state-run Global Times on Thursday claimed outsiders misunderstand Beijing’s increasingly bizarre “dynamic zero-Covid” strategy, and fail to appreciate how China is somehow saving the global economy tomorrow by brutally locking down cities, shuttering factories, and snarling supply chains today.

China’s grim coronavirus lockdown expanded on Thursday with a warning from the National Immigration Administration (NIA) that movement across China’s borders will be more tightly restricted. Chinese social media is buzzing with citizens who say their passports were seized without justification by border police.

General Electric (GE) Healthcare said on Wednesday a shortage of medical dye caused by a Chinese coronavirus lockdown of its production plant in Shanghai, China, has affected not only hospitals in the U.S. and Germany but also in other regions of the world, Reuters reported.

Elon Musk’s Tesla electric vehicle company made a devil’s bargain with the Chinese Communist government to keep its Shanghai “Gigafactory” running by forcing its employees to live inside the plant, working harsh 12-hour six-day shifts and camping on the factory floor in sleeping bags.

Toyota Motor Corp. will suspend the operation of 14 production lines across eight factories in Japan for nearly one week later this month as part of the Japanese automaker’s effort to cope with a microchip shortage caused by a month-plus Chinese coronavirus lockdown of Shanghai, China, Kyodo News reported Wednesday.

China’s government-controlled social media outlet Weibo began censoring the official United Nations account and banning users from publishing comments by World Health Organization (W.H.O.) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Tuesday – and reportedly censoring photos of top official – after Tedros called China’s coronavirus lockdown policy “unsustainable.”

A 13-year-old boy was recently forced to live alone at his family’s apartment home in China’s Kunshan city for 66 consecutive days after his parents visited neighboring Shanghai for medical treatment in late February and became trapped in the city when it was locked down to contain its latest epidemic of the Chinese coronavirus, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported on Monday.

The month-plus Chinese coronavirus lockdown of Shanghai expanded to include nearby suburban communities on Monday, the state-run Global Times reported, revealing Chinese health officials “sealed off” residential compounds in the county of Tonglu and the city of Jiangyin after detecting fresh outbreaks of the disease in local populations.

Shanghai’s formerly robust economy slowed significantly in the first quarter of 2022, lagging almost two percent behind China’s overall growth and five percent behind its performance in 2021, thanks to severe coronavirus lockdowns imposed on the city.

Hundreds of employees at the Shanghai factory of Taiwan-based Quanta Computer Inc. rioted over the weekend, pushing past barricades and clashing with police in an eruption of frustration after six weeks of punishing coronavirus lockdowns.

Shanghai’s government reimposed Chinese coronavirus lockdown orders on “hundreds” of the city’s districts Monday for at least the second time since April 5, citing a need to contain fresh localized outbreaks of the disease in the affected quarters, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping chaired a meeting of the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday in which he appeared to warn members against questioning the Party’s draconian “zero tolerance” policy toward the Chinese coronavirus, which has seen Shanghai and Beijing endure punishing lockdowns in recent days, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Shanghai officials claimed on Friday that the city’s coronavirus outbreak is “under effective control” after a month under harsh lockdown restrictions – but the lockdown will continue. Meanwhile, the city created some 9,000 permanent coronavirus testing stations in a bid to “normalize” mass testing forever.

A Weibo post began circulating this week, Radio Free Asia (RFA) said, alleging Shanghai authorities ignored calls from a multifamily building to take away an older man who may have died of starvation during the past month’s coronavirus lockdowns.

The Chinese Communist regime still resists imposing one of its deranged “dynamic zero-Covid” lockdowns on the capital city of Beijing, but more of the city slips into lockdown territory with each passing day, and on Wednesday the city shut down much of its mass transit system, making it nearly impossible for nervous residents to leave.

Despite tough rhetoric toward China, Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz once worked at a Chinese military hospital and spoke glowingly about the country, according to a recent report.

Staff at a Shanghai nursing home transported one of the facility’s residents to a city-run morgue on Sunday while he was still alive in an incident partly captured on eyewitness video, China’s Caixin Global media group reported on Monday.

Chinese government officials canceled most of the lavish events – concerts, festivals, and major travel attractions – typically organized around the communist holiday of May Day, celebrated on May 1, this year, claiming it necessary for people to stay home to prevent the further spread of Chinese coronavirus.

As fresh rounds of mass testing raised apprehension about a possible citywide lockdown in Beijing, Chinese state media on Sunday sought to “normalize” mass nucleic acid testing as a permanent feature of life.

Liang Wannian, the head of a Chinese coronavirus “response expert panel” for China’s National Health Commission, “stood firm” on Friday regarding her panel’s belief that Shanghai should remain under a city-wide lockdown to contain a local outbreak of the disease, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported.

The shadow of a Shanghai-style coronavirus lockdown loomed even larger over China’s capital city Beijing on Friday, as health officials began shutting down businesses, quarantining residential compounds, and closing schools indefinitely.