Tag: Xi’an (China)

Supply Chain Woes Could Worsen as China Imposes Covid Lockdowns

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — Companies are bracing for another round of potentially debilitating supply chain disruptions as China, home to about a third of global manufacturing, imposes sweeping lockdowns in an attempt to keep the Omicron variant at bay. The measures have already confined tens of millions of people to their homes in several Chinese cities and contributed to a suspension of connecting flights through Hong Kong from much of the world for the next month. At least 20 million people, or about 1.5 percent of China’s population, are in lockdown, mostly…

The Army of Millions Who Enforce China’s Zero-Covid Policy

Chin@Strategy

China’s “zero Covid” policy has a dedicated following: the millions of people who work diligently toward that goal, no matter the human costs. In the northwestern city of Xi’an, hospital employees refused to admit a man suffering from chest pains because he lived in a medium-risk district. He died of a heart attack. They informed a woman who was eight months pregnant and bleeding that her Covid test wasn’t valid. She lost her baby. Two community security guards told a young man they didn’t care that he had nothing to…

Xi’an Is China’s Biggest Covid Challenge Since Wuhan

Chin@Strategy

Every two days at the University of Xi’an in China, cleaners dressed in white hazmat suits taped tight to their bodies disinfect the dormitory hallways. Zhang Shengzi, a 24-year-old student, said the smell is so pungent she has to wait some time after they’ve gone before she will open her door again. She can barely leave her room, let alone campus, and all her classes are online. Ms. Zhang’s university, like the rest of Xi’an, has been under a citywide lockdown since Dec. 22. It is the longest lockdown in…

China Keeps 13 Million in Xi’an Under Strict Lockdown

Chin@Strategy

China, racing to control one of its worst outbreaks in a single city since the beginning of the pandemic, has put in place a sweeping lockdown and mass testing drives, making clear that the country has no intention of abandoning its “zero Covid” policy. Even as a growing number of countries turn away from hard lockdowns, believing their economic and human costs to be too great, the Chinese government has continued to implement harsh restrictions. The city of Xi’an, in northwestern China, recorded 1,117 infections between Dec. 9 and Dec.…