With flying confetti and clanging gongs, Beijing yesterday celebrated the lifting of the World Health Organization's (WHO) SARS travel warning over the city, reopened discos and Internet cafes and sought to resuscitate its battered tourism industry.
Banner headlines in Chinese newspapers cheered WHO's announcement Tuesday giving a clean bill of health to the capital of the nation where the outbreak began and lifting the last remaining SARS warning anywhere in the world.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"Our wish is finally fulfilled, we smile again," the popular Beijing Youth Daily said above a photograph of city residents posing in front of a banner reading, "We win!"
"Beijing returns to normal," the China Youth Daily said on its front page.
Beijing was simultaneously removed Tuesday from a WHO list of places with recent local transmissions of the disease -- a move recognizing the passage of more than 20 days since the last SARS case was isolated.
City travel bureau officials and representatives of tour agencies rallied at the Beijing Exhibition Hall to relaunch the city's tourism industry. Hotels, tour agencies and transportation companies are reported to have suffered 16 billion yuan (US$1.9 billion) losses during the outbreak.
An estimated 10 million fewer visitors came to the city during the first half of the year due to domestic travel restrictions and foreigners heeding the April 23 WHO advisory, which urged people to delay any non-urgent trips.
"We've taken the opportunity of this suspension to move the Beijing travel industry up a step," said Ding Changjiang, director of the Beijing Travel Bureau.
"It's offered us a chance to get rid of some unhealthy, environmentally unsound practices," Ding said in a speech to about assembled representatives and their families.
Musicians in traditional red and yellow outfits banged drums and gongs as confetti and streamers were shot into the air from a cannon over the hall, a hulking Soviet-style structure dating from the 1950s.
Attendees then boarded buses for a ceremonial first tour of scenic spots on the outskirts of Beijing, most of which were closed to outsiders as part of sweeping measures to contain the spread of SARS.
Feng Wanqing, general manager of Beijng's Nangong Hengye Tour Agency, said her company had been preparing for the reopening of business by giving employees additional training and sprucing up equipment and offices.
"No one that I know of in the travel industry in Beijing was laid off. They all made good use of the time off to improve their services," Feng said.
The lifting of the advisory got a calm reception from Beijing residents, most of whom had already resumed normal life weeks ago after numbers of new SARS cases began falling.
The city announced yesterday the reopening of discos, Internet cafes and other public entertainment venues closed at the height of the outbreak two months ago. Many venues, including cinemas and swimming pools, already had been allowed to reopen.
Beijing accounts for more than half of China's 347 deaths and about half of the nation's 5,000 cases of the disease, first detected in southern China last November.
At Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants, employees removed surgical masks that they'd donned as a measure against SARS.
"It's such a relief to have them off finally. They were so hot and inconvenient," said Wang Feng, a trainee behind the counter at a KFC in western Beijing.
City officials have said some prevention measures will remain indefinitely such as special fever clinics in hospitals and temperature checks at airports and bus stations.
The number of people hospitalized with SARS in Beijing fell to just 43 on Tuesday, down from more than 1,000 at the height of the epidemic.
Schools, also ordered closed in April, have begun to reopen, though some classes aren't scheduled to resume until late July.
Bars and hotels that closed for lack of customers at the height of the outbreak also have begun to reopen, though many say business is still slow.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was