Zhengzhou, the iPhone manufacturing hub, has locked down one of its most-populated districts to tame a COVID-19 flare-up, with creeping restrictions throughout China underscoring the constant threat of disruption companies face while the country sticks to “zero COVID.”
Almost 1 million residents of Zhongyuan District were ordered to stay at home starting yesterday, except for when they need to undergo COVID-19 testing, and non-essential businesses have been shut, a government notice said. The wider restrictions follow the lockdown of some neighborhoods last week, catching many people by surprise after officials had said there would not be a citywide lockdown.
IPhone maker Foxconn Technology Group’s plants are not located in the district that has been locked down. Representatives for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Bloomberg News.
Photo: AFP
The city in Henan Province reported six new local cases for Sunday, down from a recent peak of 40 on Oct 9. Nationwide, cases declined to 697, the lowest in two weeks, as outbreaks in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang came under control. Beijing posted 13 new cases, and Shanghai had 32.
China is sticking to the “zero COVID” pillars of lockdowns and mass testing to tame its biggest flare-up in two months, despite the heavy cost.
The policy has dragged on growth in the world’s second-biggest economy and roiled global supply chains as important manufacturing hubs — from vehicles to phones and Christmas trees — contend with the disruption of shutdowns and reopenings.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Sunday signaled no looming change to the approach, disappointing investors who had hoped for some signs of loosening. During a speech opening the twice-a-decade National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing, he said the strict rules protect people’s lives, although Xi avoided mentioning the economic toll.
Economists surveyed by Bloomberg predict growth of just 3.3 percent this year, the second-weakest pace in more than four decades.
The stringent COVID-19 curbs have also been stoking public discontent. Censorship went into overdrive late last week, with words such as “Beijing” and “bridge” restricted on social media platforms like Sina Weibo after two banners criticizing Xi and zero COVID were displayed on a bridge in the capital.
One read: “We want food, not PCR [polymerase chain reaction] tests. We want freedom, not lockdowns and controls.”
While China’s most important cities have so far avoided large-scale lockdowns, officials have instead been quietly halting a growing list of activities.
Several schools in Shanghai have suspended in-person classes as the fear of infection spread grows, according to parents and social media posts. The port city of Tianjin last week announced a lockdown of one district and the southern megacity of Guangzhou shut schools in one area.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
IN PROTECTION: Video released by the Senate showed Ronald dela Rosa being chased through the halls of the upper chamber, pursued by National Bureau of Investigation officers Philippine authorities on Monday said that they would not arrest for now a lawmaker wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, capping a lengthy Senate standoff. Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who served as police chief and Duterte’s top enforcer during the bloody drug crackdown, would be treated as if in the custody of the Senate, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag told reporters after the politician had taken refuge in the legislative building. “We respect that they are a co-equal branch,” Matibag said after the Senate refused
RSS