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.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘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
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS