Residents in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region have complained on social media about what they say are harsh COVID-19 lockdown measures in the sensitive region after a local outbreak.
China had largely brought domestic transmission under control through lockdowns, travel restrictions and testing, but sporadic regional outbreaks have emerged.
A new cluster in Xinjiang’s capital, Urumqi, in the middle of last month prompted fresh restrictions, with 902 cases officially reported.
Photo: Reuters
Officials said this month they had “effectively contained” the spread of the Urumqi cluster, and there have been no new cases reported in the past eight days.
However, hundreds of residents have gone on to local social media forums in the past few days to complain about harsh conditions.
With some of the comments removed, users tried to also voice their complaints on local forums on the Sina Weibo (微博) platform in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Social media users shared photographs of front doors sealed with steel crowbars, and locks installed by community workers.
“Why can’t prefectures with no cases remove the lockdown? Why do you need to lock down the whole of Xinjiang?” read one comment on Weibo, which received thousands of likes.
“Doors have been sealed, this has brought huge inconvenience to workers and people’s lives. Prices of daily items have risen ... many things I buy are expired” read another.
Some residents also wrote that they were forced by authorities to take Chinese medicine daily, and were required to film themselves doing so.
One video from Saturday showed dozens of high-rise residents in Urumqi yelling from their windows in despair.
Stranded migrant workers, university students, business travelers and tourists also complained about not being able to leave Xinjiang.
“I have even taken three nucleic acid tests ... but community workers won’t let me leave,” one user wrote on a message board run by the state-run People’s Daily.
Urumqi authorities yesterday said that lockdowns would be eased in areas that had no virus cases, according to a report in the state-run tabloid Global Times.
About half of Xinjiang’s more than 21 million people are ethnic Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims, many of whom complain of decades of political and religious oppression by the Chinese Communist Party, which the government denies.
Activists have accused the Chinese government of incarcerating about 1 million Uighurs and other Turkic people in Xinjiang camps.
Beijing has described them as vocational training centers to counter Islamic radicalism.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2