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3,896 articles matching the search query.
China after COVID
This week on Sinica, UPenn legal scholar Neysun Mahboubi talks about his recently concluded trip back to China — his first time back since the outbreak of the pandemic. Neysun talks about the importance of in-person, face-to-face scholarly exchange, and despite concerns over the more restrictive political space in China, sounds a hopeful note about what the restoration of in-person exchange might mean for the future of U.S.-China relations.
Why is it so hard to get a straight answer about where COVID came from? Q&A with John Sudworth
BBC correspondent John Sudworth left China in 2021 after years of harassment for his reporting on human rights abuses in Xinjiang and COVID. His latest project is a podcast on the origin of COVID-19, and it’s a fascinating look into one of the most polarizing issues of our time.
Generation Carpe Diem: Older Chinese adopt ‘seize the day’ mentality in a post-COVID-zero world
A long-standing stereotype about China’s Silver Economy consumer is someone who is frugal, inactive, and busy looking after their grandchildren. But the three-year pandemic has been a catalyst for many Chinese seniors to ‘treat themselves,’ embrace a fun-oriented lifestyle, and spend more.
China’s local governments are struggling to pay their bills
Provincial- and city-level governments in China are straining under unsustainable debt habits decades in the making, which were exacerbated by the costs of COVID-zero. Teachers and other public service employees are paying the price.
Pensioners protest as China’s healthcare system struggles to recover from COVID spending
Crowds of elderly Chinese people took to the streets in Wuhan and Dalian to protest local healthcare reforms. While protests aren’t that rare in China, such public anger at its cash-strapped healthcare system may signal waning trust in the government.
Editor’s note for February 15, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
The relocated couriers who risked their health in COVID-ravaged Beijing
When a rapid spread of COVID-19 engulfed Beijing and caused severe delays in package delivery, an army of couriers from other cities were relocated to alleviate the problem. Their bravery has led to a national conversation about privilege and the role of essential workers.
China’s chaotic COVID re-opening
Deborah Seligsohn, assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, talks about her time spent in Shanghai and Beijing between October 2022 to early January 2023. She shares her firsthand experience with quarantine, testing, and lockdowns — as well as witnessing the protests and China’s sudden reopening.
Clay Baldo is no stranger to China
Clay Baldo, creator and host of the Strangers in China podcast, talks about the third season on the chaotic Shanghai lockdown of 2022.
Viral ibuprofen dance lifts mood in China’s COVID-19 outbreak
As China grapples with an unprecedented COVID-19 surge following its relaxation of strict virus-control measures, people have to make their own fun while avoiding face-to-face interaction.
Editor’s note for December 22, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
‘Pandemic: Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!’ — Phrase of the Week
Pandemic fatigue is driving many Chinese social media users to pull out a popular phrase, in hopes of warding off the wave of COVID infections washing over the nation.
Editor’s note for December 19, 2022
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
China reports only two COVID deaths as infections strain healthcare system
The two deaths in Beijing are the first official fatalities China has reported since relaxing COVID zero, as a wave of cases strain its healthcare system and its economy. But no one believes that only two people have died from the virus.
‘Peachy pandemic escape’ — Phrase of the Week
A canned sweet snack from northern China has become the latest pandemic hit with Chinese consumers looking for an escape.
In the black-and-white documentary ‘Jet Lag,’ pandemic travelogue meets family memoir
Exploring the personal and the familial, award-winning director Zheng Lu Xinyuan’s nonfiction film intermingles the pandemic and politics — but not in the way you expect.
Francis Fukuyama on the risky path Xi Jinping chose for China
As China navigates an uncertain post-COVID-zero future after highly unusual nationwide protests, celebrated scholar and author Francis Fukuyama spoke to Audrey Li Jiajia about what we can learn from the events of the past few weeks.
Feminists and LGBTQ activists at China’s COVID protests
A feminist and an LGBTQ activist speak out about the A4 protests inside and outside China — how they sparked divisions, misogyny, and violence, but also hope and solidarity.
Have the seeds of dissent been sown in China?
Something in China changed this year. Citizens have a new appreciation of their power even against a highly repressive party-state armed with advanced surveillance technology, argues scholar Lynette H. Ong.
The mounting risks in Beijing’s COVID-zero reversal | Live with Lizzi Lee
Jennifer Bouey, an epidemiologist and the chair of the Department of International Health at Georgetown University, discusses the incoming wave of COVID infections that could strain China’s healthcare system and endanger the elderly.
China Says Xi, Leaders Got Local Shots in Rare Disclosure
Xi is vaccinated against COVID! Beijing announced that all Party and state leaders (党和国家领导) have received homegrown COVID-19 shots, the first time there has been such confirmation. China has the world’s strictest COVID restrictions, but no vaccine mandate.
抗原拭子存不规范生产乱象 上海宁波展开调查
COVID-testing profits are still soaring: Antigen test kits and masks are being investigated in Shanghai after hair was found in a swab, but COVID-testing companies continued to rake in huge profits in the first quarter.
Beijing halts weddings and funerals and closes schools in Covid fightback
Lockdown crackdown: Authorities will crack down on price gouging as food shortages continue in Shanghai as well as a run on the supermarkets in Beijing.
China's Beijing finds positive samples in COVID testing this week
Beijing detected just over two handfuls of positive COVID-19 cases in the first round of mass testing conducted this week. In 19.80 million out of the 19.81 million samples taken, 12 tubes tested positive.
Authorities also recorded 46 new locally transmitted cases within 23 hours as of Wednesday. “I’m not worried that Beijing would suffer from a shortage of supplies, so I don’t plan to stock up,” said Zhang Yifan, a resident from Dongcheng District. Shanghai announced its lowest total for new cases in weeks: 12,309. Yiwu, a wholesale trade hub in eastern China, started pandemic curbs on Wednesday. The city exports everything from Christmas decorations to U.S. presidential campaign merchandise, adding more strain to supply chains.
Beijing enforces lockdowns, expands COVID-19 mass testing
Beijing tested nearly 3.8 million people for COVID-19 in an initial round in Chaoyang District on Monday, with all the results negative except for one. The Chinese capital is mass-testing much more quickly than in Shanghai, where officials started testing on a similar scale only after infections had been recorded for weeks and more than 1,000 cases had emerged.
“It’s cheaper to act earlier than to act later,” said Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, the chief of the COVID-19 task force at the World Health Network. In Shanghai, many people are considering exiting the city. On April 15 alone, WeChat users looked up the word immigration 70 million times on the platform, while Shanghai’s big bankers are planning to move away out of frustration over the city’s COVID curbs. Baotou, which is home to about 2.7 million people and one of China’s major mines of rare earths, will lock down for a week after two cases were reported.
How China’s Response to COVID-19 Set the Stage for a Worldwide Wave of Censorship
China’s COVID censors are setting “a playbook for information repression” where authoritarian governments in 80 nations have now placed new curbs on free speech and political expression that were “falsely described as public-health measures,” the New Yorker reports.
Six of Hong Kong’s biggest banks to reopen all branches as Covid-19 eases
Hong Kong’s biggest banks to reopen all branches: Branch operations are to be fully restored next week as the city prepares to relax some of its social-distancing rules.
iPhone maker Pegatron halts Shanghai production due to Covid lockdown
iPhone factories closed: Taiwanese iPhone maker Pegatron halted operations because of pandemic restrictions at two subsidiaries in Shanghai and Kunshan, raising global supply chain fears.
U.S. Orders Departure of Consulate Staff and Family From Shanghai Amid Covid-19 Surge
The U.S. State Department has ordered the departure of some consulate staff and their families from Shanghai because of the COVID-19 surge and associated lockdowns.
Battery Giant CATL Adopts Measures to Avoid Covid Shutdown
CATL, the world’s biggest manufacturer of EV batteries, has implemented a so-called closed loop for workers at its main factory in China in a bid to avoid a COVID-19 shutdown.
Beijing city authorities tighten Covid controls in effort to stop Omicron surge reaching Chinese capital
New COVID-19 measures in Beijing: Municipal authorities have introduced the strictest measures since early 2020, including curbs on travel from certain parts of China and wider quarantine regulations.
China Lockdown: Shanghai Sacks Airport, Hospital Officials for Covid Failures
Authorities have sacked an airport executive and a hospital dean for failing to control COVID, while non-Chinese airline carriers were instructed to reduce passenger loads to a maximum of 40% of capacity starting on April 11 until at least the end of the month.
Shanghai vows to improve food deliveries as discontent grows over COVID curbs
Shanghai is trying to improve the distribution of food and essential goods for locked-in residents, who are struggling to get meat, rice, and other supplies.
Shanghai Covid lockdown ‘will have a global effect on almost every trade’
China’s lockdowns “will have a global effect on almost every trade,” as severe pressure on transport and logistics across the country threatens to worsen the economic fallout.
Shunned Oil Piling Up Off China as Virus Outbreak Worsens
Around 22 million barrels of Russian, Venezuelan, and Iranian oil are lingering right off of China’s coasts, as the nation’s strict pandemic measures to control the ongoing COVID outbreak continue to choke global supply chains. Traders estimate that demand will fall by half a million barrels a day due to factory and transportation shutdowns.
市委市政府召开做好当前疫情防控工作会议，对社会动员和生活物资保供再部署再落实
Zero tolerance in Shanghai: At a meeting of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee and government today, Committee Secretary Lǐ Qiáng 李强指出 said that the city will strive to ensure the people’s welfare in the battle against COVID, and that the National Exhibition and Convention Center in Shanghai will be converted into a makeshift hospital expected to provide 40,000 beds, but there will be no relaxation of the COVID-zero approach.
Covid Cases in China Hit Record, as Shanghai Extends Lockdown
China topped a record 16,400 COVID cases on Monday, the sternest test of the nation’s COVID-zero policy since the virus emerged in Wuhan in early 2020.
One woman was reportedly stuck on a bus for 16 hours, with no food or bathroom breaks, on her way to a mass quarantine center.
船舶“塞港”真相如何？上海港回应 - 21财经
There is no congestion at Shanghai Port, according to Shanghai International Port Group, which denied media reports that the city’s worst-ever COVID-19 outbreak was snarling up logistics.
VW to Close Part of Its Plant in Shanghai Amid Covid Lockdowns
Volkswagen will temporarily close part of its plant in Shanghai following difficulty procuring parts due to the lockdowns. The plant is a joint venture with China’s SAIC.
