No To Covid Test, No To Food, No to Democracy or No To Liberate, or No to Liberate: A Social Media Story about a Demonstration of China against the Zero-Covid Policy

The government has dropped or eased most quarantine, testing and other restrictions within China, joining the United States, Japan and other governments in trying to live with the virus instead of stamping out transmission.

In a video that has recently been viewed millions on Weibo, she yelled abuse at the hazmat-suited workers below in a scene that appears to reflect the growing discontent with the Chinese government’s zero- Covid policy.

The woman was put under a vechicle for a year after returning from university. They stare back, seemingly unmoved.

The zero- Covid policy is currently associated with the success of the model of fighting Covid that Mr. Xi was associated with, according to a professor at the National University of Singapore.

Even though there are more flare infections and a new strain circulating just days before the country’s most important political event, the Communist Party congress beginning in Beijing on Sunday, that claim is still valid.

Observers across the world will be watching the twice-a-decade meeting for signs of the party’s priorities when it comes to its zero-Covid stance, which has been blamed for exacerbating mounting problems in the economy, from stalled growth to a collapsing housing market.

“Say no to Covid test, yes to food. No to lock up, no to freedom. There is no to lie or to be dishonest to the dignity of this country. No to cultural revolution, yes to reform. No to great leader, yes to vote. One banner called for be a citizen and the other one was for the removal of the leader of the country.

Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, immediately censored search results for “Sitong Bridge,” the site of the protest. Before long, key words including “Beijing,” “Haidian,” “warrior,” “brave man,” and even “courage” were restricted from search.

The super-app that is essential for daily life in China has seen a number of accounts banned after they commented on the protest.

Still, many spoke out to express their support and awe. Some posted a picture of the Chinese pop song “Lonely Warrior” in a veiled reference to the protester, while others said they’d never forget.

Beijing is going after the zero-covid bug: an ongoing crisis in Shanghai after the Bloomberg News and Financial Times revealed that China’s water authorities had taken action to halt the growth of a coronavirus strain

Even in the face of rising public discontent, all the signs show that the zero-covid approach will stay until at least 2023, with the state media articles this week serving to quash speculation that there will be a change after Congress.

Residents are on edge about any sign that the world’s strictest lockdown will be repeated in Shanghai, where 25 million people have already been gripped by it for two months.

Last Friday, Bloomberg News and the Financial Times reported that almost 250 million people in China may have caught Covid in the first 20 days of December, a figure presented during an internal meeting of China’s National Health Commission, according to both outlets. They referred to sources who were involved in the discussions.

Spooked by the possibility of unpredictable and unannounced snap lockdowns – and mindful that authorities have previously backtracked after suggesting that no such measures were coming – some people in the city have reportedly been hoarding drinking water.

That panic buying has been made worse by an announcement that Shanghai’s water authorities have taken action to ensure water quality after discovering saltwater inflows to two reservoirs at the mouth of the Yangtze River in September.

The causes of the increase in infections is not clear though authorities are trying to contain the spread of a coronaviruses strain that was detected in China in late September.

The country has also seen an uptick in cases in domestic tourist destinations, despite its strict curbs having discouraged people from traveling or spending over China’s Golden Week holiday in early October.

More than 240,000 university students in Inner Mongolia have been locked down on campuses due to the latest outbreak, according to Zhang Xiaoying, a deputy director of the regional Department of Education. And the outbreak on campus has led to punitive action, with one university Communist Party boss being sacked after 39 students from his institution tested positive.

There are more than 20 million people who have been banned from leaving the western part of the region, and they have to stay. The tally shows that there were more than 400 new cases on Thursday.

Beijing appears unwilling to change its stance on hardline issues. For three days this week, the state-run Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily published commentaries reiterating that China would not let its guard down.

In his nationally televised New Year’s Eve speech, Xi said that they had entered a new phase of Covid response where tough challenges remained. “Everyone is holding on with great fortitude, and the light of hope is right in front of us. It is a must that we pull through, as perseverance and solidarity mean victory.

That moment has lingered on my mind. It feels like a snapshot of how China has changed since the strongman leader was elected ten years ago, and will have long-term global implications.

During China’s National Day holiday in early October, several expatriate friends and I took our young children – who are of mixed races and tend to stand out in a Chinese crowd – to the Great Wall on the outskirts of Beijing.

As we climbed a restored but almost deserted section of the ancient landmark, a few local families on their way down walked past us. Noticing our kids, one of their children exclaimed: “Wow foreigners! With Covid? Let be away from them… The group quicklyened their pace as the adults remained quiet.

Implications of the Great Wall for China’s relations with the United States During the 2018-2019 General Reionization Seismology

Xi Jinping is expected to break longstanding tradition in the coming days and secure a third term as China’s president, putting the country on a new course that could increase tensions with the U.S.

The Great Wall, a top tourist attraction that normally draws throngs of visitors during holidays, stood nearly empty when we went thanks to Xi’s insistence – three years into the global pandemic – on a policy of zero tolerance for Covid infections while the rest of the world has mostly moved on and re-opened.

China’s borders have remained shut for most international travelers since March 2020, while many foreigners who once called the country home have chosen to leave.

With the highly contagious Omicron variant raging through parts of the country, authorities had discouraged domestic travel ahead of National Day holiday. They are also sticking to a playbook of strict quarantine, incessant mass testing and invasive contact tracing – often locking down entire cities of millions over a handful of cases.

tourism spending plummeted in the last year of normal, in part because of the so called Golden Week, which saw holiday travel plummet.

The opening of the party congress on Sunday made it very clear that China is moving in the opposite direction of being open. He’s more focused on national security than he is on reform and opening up, the policies that resulted in China out of poverty.

The country has the world’s most extensive internet filters and censors, built by the cyber police for years in order to block and remove anything that is deemed harmful to the party. The posts that are seen as challenging the party line are immediately scrubbed clean by censors with the help of artificial intelligence.

The local kid made a remark on the Great Wall. But the true danger of the “blame the foreigners” sentiment comes when adults in powerful positions take advantage of it in the face of mounting pressure on the domestic front.

China’s relations with these four US allies have deteriorated to varying degrees in recent years, due to rising geopolitical tensions, and disputes over trade and the origins of Covid-19 pandemic.

Parts of the Great Wall were rebuilt by the emperors of those dynasties, but they failed to reverse the decline of their country. But the tools at their disposal were no match to the high-tech ones in the hands of China’s current ruler. Xi seems confident that his “walls” – among other things – will help him realize his oft-cited ultimate goal: the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Poised to secure a groundbreaking third term when the Communist Party congress concludes this week, Xi defended his hard-line reign in a sweeping speech and insisted that the party must remain united under his rule against an increasingly hostile West.

His praise was followed by a warning that the nation must come together in unity to cope with a world he depicted as hostile. And though he did not mention the United States by name, his distrust of the world’s other great power was an unmistakable backdrop to that exhortation.

Mr. Xi warned that there were dangers in the midst of peace. Get the house in tiptop shape before rain comes, and prepare to go through the major tests of high winds and waves.

Xi and the “Taiwan question”: A warning to all concerned about the rebirth of China in the age of war

They included a professor at the party’s top academy who helped train thousands of high-ranking Communists. An economist who would win China’s top economics prize for 2012. A young historian planning to teach a class about contemporary Chinese history, including sensitive periods like the Cultural Revolution.

He used the term “new era” 39 times in his speech and boasted of the achievements under his leadership. It has been a dark era for some Chinese, a transition away from the system that used to be authoritarian and private enterprise, but now has a single ideology and a single leader.

In other news from China, the government said it was delaying indefinitely the release of economic data that had been expected to show continued lackluster performance.

The full text of the party’s five-yearly work report, which was summarized in the speech, was aimed at allowing China to win local wars in a variety of ways.

China now boasts the world’s largest navy, with some of the newest and most powerful warships afloat; an air force with stealth fighter jets and a stealth bomber expected soon; and a rocket force bristling with new missiles that give it a reach unmatched in Asia.

But as Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine shows, even the largest, most formidable seeming militaries have Achilles heels that can be exploited by smaller, savvier forces.

Even though he is set to win a third term as supreme commander of the Chinese military at this week’s 20th party congress, what should be even more worrying is the fact that many think that the same problems that plagued Moscow inUkraine could plague China if there is any spillover.

The rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is being prophesied by the wheels of history. Complete reunification of our country must be realized,” Xi told the Congress to thundering applause.

The “Taiwan question” is an internal matter in China. It is “at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations,” wrote Hua, the spokesperson, on Twitter after the meeting ended.

Xi militarism versus russian parallels: a case study of the China-Au embassy visit to Russia

Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are required for the largest amphibious operation since World War II, according to analysts.

While the PLA Navy has been churning out ships – including a new aircraft carrier launched this year and numerous Type 055 destroyers, seen by some as the world’s most powerful surface ships – doing so has been expensive.

According to professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew in Scotland, Taiwan has a relatively cheap way of making sure that they don’t have a chance against Russia.

China also faces a significant challenge in making sure all the different parts of its now formidable fighting forces pull in the same direction – another issue that has dogged Russia in Ukraine.

Creating a unified structure in which naval, air, army and rocket units work together to execute a plan is still in its early stages.

According to the work report on Sunday, the need for improved the command system for joint operations is one of the things that need to be done.

During the days after the visit, the navy blockaded Taiwan and the air force flew jets into the Air Defense Identification Zone.

Four of the top six officers of China’s Central Military Commission (CMC) have reached the normal retirement age of 68 and are being replaced as Xi heads into his third term, according to Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs at the US National Defense University.

What’s more, the four departing officers were in charge of the PLA’s actual fighting forces, while the two remaining ones come from the military’s political ranks, Wuthnow wrote for the Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief last month.

Analysts have warned that language could be a smokescreen for something more sinister – likening it to how Russian President Vladimir Putin refers to his invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/asia/china-party-congress-xi-military-russia-parallels-intl-hnk-mil-mic/index.html

The 2016 Summer Highs in China: Why the United States and China should act together to protect the environment and the environment from the onset of World War II

A missile was launched by the rocket force of the Chinese People’s Liberation ArmyPLA, targeting designated maritime areas to the east of Taiwan.

However, Chinese state media have done their best to play the order down, saying it could cover actions such as participating in international peacekeeping operations or providing disaster relief.

The outlines aim to prevent and counteract risks and challenges, manage emergencies, safeguard people and property, and safeguard world peace and regional stability, the Xinhua news service reported.

Xi has ramped up China’s ambitions for reducing carbon emissions and slowing global warming. He reiterated those goals in typically grandiose language this week. (“We must uphold and act on the principle that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.”) He has joined forces with Putin, a man who is threatening to reverse the global climate fight.

The summer of 2016 was the hottest on record in China, with two months of record-high temperatures. The Yangtze River dried to a trickle. Production was stopped to reduce the burden on the power grids. The government’s chief forecaster, Chen Lijuan, told a Communist Party news outlet that the extreme highs could become a “new normal.”

The cooling of tensions between China and US was signaled by the resumed of direct dialogue between leaders of the two countries.

The long-term risk is that uncontrolled competition will fuel overextension abroad, where the impulse to counter every potential threat or challenge by the other makes it difficult to focus resources and attention on achieving positive priorities and outcomes. In the United States, escalated competition could exacerbate domestic divisions and undermine democracy. More than 60 percent of Chinese-born scientists working in the United States are considering leaving the country due to increased anti-Asian violence, according to a study.

A good place to start would be military operations around Taiwan, including the reduction of Chinese maneuvers across the “median line,” an unofficial buffer line, of the Taiwan Strait. The credibility of Beijing’s assurances that it likes to resolve differences peacefully across the Taiwan Strait was undermined by its actions. The president of China stated in his speech on Sunday that China would continue to strive for peaceful reunification with Taiwan and warned against interference by outside forces.

The Communist Party sent top officials to deal with the growing political crisis in Wuhan after the first coronaviruses outbreak there in early 2020. One of them, Sun Chunlan, stayed for three months, rallying local cadres and sourcing protective gear for health workers and hospital beds for patients.

Calling for absolute loyalty in a war against the virus, Ms. Sun warned that any deserters would be “nailed to the pillar of historical shame forever.”

China’s Great Rejuvenation: What the US and China are going through in the last 100 years of the People’s Republic of China

As the rare woman in the upper echelons of Chinese politics, it is a role to which she has become accustomed, driving the Communist Party’s will and bearing the country’s criticism. “Women most of the time get pushed to the frontline when male politicians don’t want to deal with a crisis,” said Hanzhang Liu, assistant professor of politics at Pitzer College.

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, no other leader has had a third term. The break from historical norms would represent a change in China’s course, according to the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center.

“He’s able to focus even more on implementing his foreign strategy and operationalizing his vision of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Sun said. “That inevitably will lead to even more, I would say, contest for influence and a contest for leadership, contest for superiority with the United States.”

Sun believes that political loyalists of the President will be appointed to key positions relating to national security and foreign policy to help bring about his vision.

Chris Li, director of research at the Asia-Pacific Initiative at Harvard University, says that China and the US will likely fight over Taiwan and technology in the future.

But that perception — and the resulting actions from the U.S., such as high-level congressional visits from the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has led to something of a catch-22 situation, Li said.

There is a back and forth between the US and China over how to retaliate for each other’s actions.

The tech industry has become a lot more important for China as the country moves towards a “Great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” by the 100 year anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.

It’s possible that there will be strategic competition between supply chains with this response from Washington and China’s desire to increase its self-reliance.

Li said that the situation was essentially an impasse. But that doesn’t mean progress can’t happen, only that achieving it will test both countries in the years to come.

The Impact of Covid on Daily Life: How Do You End Up Being Closer to a Positive Case, or Where I Wanna Be?

China’s advanced online ecosystem – run on mobile phone superapps and ubiquitous QR codes – has offered arguably unrivaled convenience for consumers to shop, dine and travel. Now, those technologies play a role in constraining daily life.

It all feels like an end to a long tunnel. Scanning QR codes every time I entered a building, daily tests, and the constant thought that I could be sent to a quarantine facility for being a “secondary close contact” (being near someone who has interacted with a positive case), have all dominated the majority of my time in China.

Across the country, basic activities like going to the grocery store, riding public transport, or entering an office building depend on holding an up-to-date, negative Covid test and not being flagged as a close contact of a patient – data points reflected by a color code.

It’s worth mentioning that going out in public is a risk if you end up testing positive for something, as being barricaded into a mall or office building while a snap lock down is in effect can be just as dangerous, depending on whether someone ends up testing positive.

“(You see) all the flaws of big data when it has control over your daily life,” said one Shanghai resident surnamed Li, who spent a recent afternoon scrambling to prove he didn’t need to quarantine after a tracking system pinned his wife to a location near to where a positive case had been detected.

After receiving no message, Li and his wife reached out to a hotline and explained their situation, getting her health code back to green.

The People’s Daily had an editorial that said the essence of persisting with dynamic zero- Covid was putting people first and prioritization life, it was one of three releases along similar lines last week.

“What makes you think that you won’t be on that late-night bus one day?” read a viral comment, which garnered more than 250,000 likes before it was censored – one of a number of glimpses into rising frustration with the cost of the policy.

Last week, a rare political protest in Beijing saw banners hung from a bridge along the capital’s busy Third Ring Road that zoned in on social controls under the policy.

For nearly three years, China’s low Covid caseload and death count compared with countries like the United States had been held up as a measure of the party’s merit and legitimacy.

Vaccination Access and Covid-19: Implications for the United States and its Emerging Populations as a Striking Threat to the Future

The impact of the controls is getting worse, as they have resulted in people being unable to get food, medicine, and income because of lock-ups.

In the run up to the Party Congress, controls amplified – as local authorities around the country sought to tamp down on outbreaks coinciding with the major political event.

“At the same time, the threat posed by Covid is reduced because of the higher vaccine coverage and the availability of antivirals. The point has already been reached where continued zero- Covid could be seen as a cost-effective strategy, he said, adding that high vaccine coverage was key for a planned transition away from zero- Covid.

Residents said that younger people in cosmopolitan urban centers may be more likely to support opening the country to foreign investment, as their fears about Covid-19 may play out along generations and geographic lines.

According to experts, keeping tight controls is just delaying the inevitable, and should be focused on getting or expanding access to the most effective vaccines to raise elderly vaccine rates and increase ICU capacity.

Low vaccination rates among China’s elderly have led to fears that a loosening of restrictions could overwhelm the country’s health system. As of November 11, about two-thirds of people age 80 and older had received two doses, and only 40% had received a booster shot.

“The vaccines take time, the ICU expansion takes time – and if you don’t see effort to prepare for the change, that implies that they are not planning to change the policy any time soon,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

In the past the health code system has been used to diffuse social protest by denying the savings of some people who protested after their health codes suddenly turned red.

Zero-COVID: What the Chinese government has to do about China’s economy and institutions, and what he can do about it

“When the ability to govern decreases, even in the absence of any particular policy from the top, the ineptitude, brutality, and ignorance of lower-level officials will brew disasters for the common people they rule over,” said Mr. Wu, who is a senior research scholar at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions.

Many businesspeople have lost a lot of money under “zero-Covid,” which has shuttered cities and locked millions of people in their homes for weeks at a time as the government seeks to eliminate the coronavirus.

Despite many conversations over the years, we never talked about politics. I was surprised when he called after the party congress to talk about his “political depression.” He used to believe that the Chinese were the smartest people in the world. He and many of his friends spend most of their time hiking, golfing and drinking. “We’re too depressed to work,” he said.

He was planning to take his start-up public when it was doing so well. New hires sat idly with nothing to do when there were locked down cities because of the “zero- Covid” rules. He has no choice but to lay off more than 100 people, or he will have to leave his family behind and go to North America.

The tech executive from Beijing said he had a chilling experience. He was not able to tell his employees to leave work early and buy groceries when rumors of Beijing being locked down were making the rounds. He was worried that he could be reported for spreading rumors — something that had gotten people detained by the police. He only told them to leave if there were things to take care of.

The Chinese government has strict zero- COVID policies, but on Wednesday they loosened them a bit. For the first time patients with no symptoms or mild symptoms of the disease will be allowed to stay at home instead of in a centrally managed facility. But researchers worry the changes will lead to a rise in infections that risk overwhelming hospitals.

The measures are about “optimizing” existing Covid prevention and control policy, Shen Hongbing, a disease control official, told a news conference last week. He said that they are not an easing of control.

The government reported 10,535 new domestically transmitted cases on Thursday, the highest in months, and the authorities girded for the situation to worsen.

The National Health Commission warned that the outbreak is likely to expand in scope and scale due to the winter and spring weather.

What Did President Biden Tell Us About China During the Indonesian Summit? How the United States and China Embedded in the Cold War

The summit in Indonesia yielded two important outcomes, according to the US: A joint position that Russia must not use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine and an expected resumption of talks on climate between American and Chinese negotiators, a boost for the COP 27 global climate conference in Egypt.

Biden’s maneuvering is also the latest sign that an emerging goal of his foreign policy is to stress differences between Moscow and Beijing. Before he went to Asia, Biden suggested that China didn’t have that much respect for either Russian President Vladimir Putin or Russia itself.

That the world’s two most powerful leaders had not been addressing these issues together in recent months shows how the entire world suffers when Washington and Beijing are as deeply estranged as they’ve been this year.

Leon Panetta – a former White House chief of staff, defense secretary and CIA chief who dealt with US-China relations for decades – expressed cautious optimism after the talks on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

It’s not unusual for the meeting to serve to keep disagreements to a minimum and reopen communication lines, just as it did between Xi and Biden.

The goal of both the US and China is incompatible, and this was evident at the summit in Indonesia.

“Neither side should try to remold the other in one’s own image or seek to change or even subvert the other’s system,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said.

Biden didn’t find Xi to be more aggressive or conciliatory. I found him the way he’s always been: Direct and straightforward. … We were very clear about the places where we disagreed or were unclear of each other’s position.

The reason that Richard Nixon engaged China during the 70s cold war was to open strategic gaps between Beijing and Moscow, which is what Washington has done ever since.

But few experts believe China will distance itself from Russia, with several telling CNN the two countries’ mutual reliance and geopolitical alignment remains strong – including their shared vision for a “new world order.”

The White House and the Chinese government made statements about that happening. Taiwan’s independence, the war inUkraine, and China’s human rights record were sources of disagreement between the two sides. And they broached areas of potential cooperation, such as climate change, global health and economic stability.

The leaders of two superpowers met face-to-face and unmasked on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, on Monday evening. In a substantial meeting, they touched on the war in Ukraine, military tension in the Taiwan Strait and North Korean missile tests.

Today’s meeting was the first face-to-face exchange between the two since Biden became president. It took place after both leaders had just strengthened their respective political positions at home, analysts say.

Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at the London-based think tank Chatham House, says that given Biden’s “reasonable success” in the midterms, he is in a stronger position to steer Washington’s relationship with Beijing.

U.S. officials have a certain amount of optimism. “The fact of a leaders’ meeting coming together has created space in the Chinese system, for reopening what we believe to just be simply ongoing work between our side to get things done,” a senior administration official told reporters before the meeting.

The “breakthrough” is that Beijing and Washington have agreed to resume climate talks that were frozen in August because of Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. The White House stated that the leaders agreed to make it easier for senior officials to communicate.

However, Yu warns that Monday’s meeting is just “a baby step” towards improving relations: “It will not resolve any substantial grievances both sides have had against each other, but only slowing down the deterioration of their relations.”

Taiwan’s response to the Xi-Biden meeting: “China’s aggression against China threatens global security and stability,” said Vice President Antony Biden

The State Department said that Secretary of State Antony Blinken will also visit China in person sometime early next year to follow up on the Xi-Biden meeting.

The United States imposed dramatic export bans on certain advanced Semiconductor Technology in order to protect it from China.

The world is big enough for China and Japan to prosper together, according to a foreign ministry spokesman who was with the president in his meeting with Biden.

There was intense media speculation over the intention of China to invade Taiwan, but Vice President Biden said he did not think there was an actual attempt to do so.

But the president objected to Beijing’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive” Chinese actions in the waters around Taiwan, according to the White House readout, adding such behaviors “undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region, and jeopardize global prosperity.”

China has refused to condemn the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, or even refer to it as such. It has instead decried Western sanctions and amplified Kremlin talking points blaming the US and NATO for the conflict.

A readout from the French Presidency said the two leaders “reaffirmed their firm position on preventing the use of nuclear weapons” in the war in Ukraine – a line that was not included in the Chinese readout.

Last year, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi put out three core demands — “bottom lines” — that China wanted the U.S. to agree to in order for relations to improve: to not get in the way in the country’s development, to respect China’s claims over places like Taiwan and to respect Beijing’s Communist Party rule.

Since August, Pelosi has visited Taiwan, with the U.S. increasing its ties with the island. Congress is considering drawing on the U.S. weapons stockpile to arm the island at American expense. Biden stressed in the press conference after meeting Xi that U.S. policy on Taiwan remains unchanged.

China and Hong Kong rallied at the United States in the G20 after a narrow victory in the November 11 election: An update on Biden’s message

And while Biden came in to the G20 with a stronger position due to the narrow Democratic victory in the battle to control the Senate, he is up for reelection in two years himself.

Analysts said the meeting could lay the groundwork for stronger ties between the world’s top economic powerhouses. The stock markets in mainland China and Hong Kong were strong on Tuesday as a result of the strength of the US dollar.

Neil Thomas, senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia at Eurasia Group, said the goal of the meeting was to “build a floor” under declining relations between Beijing and Washington.

In an official readout, President Biden said the United States and China must work together to address transnational challenges including climate change and global macroeconomic issues including debt relief, health security, and global food security.

Ken Cheung, chief Asian foreign exchange strategist at a bank, said the meeting was positive and the two sides were looking for common ground.

The Hang Seng index recorded a 4% rally on Tuesday, on track to record a third straight day of gains. The index, boosted by China’s latest policy shift towards a gradual reopening of borders and a sweeping rescue package for the ailing property sector, has soared 14% since last Thursday.

The Chinese technology shares that had been battered by a regulatory crack down at home led markets higher on Tuesday. The shares ofAlibaba were up by 11% in Hong Kong.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/15/business/us-china-g20-meeting-stronger-ties-intl-hnk/index.html

Xi Jinping and the world leaders at the group of 20 summit in Bali: The role of China in tackling the G20 summit and the coronavirus

They said the reiteration of the US position on Taiwan and the one China policy by Biden was helpful.

“This was far more progress than we, or indeed most commentators had expected, and dominates what may otherwise turn out to have been a fairly irrelevant G20 summit,” the ING analysts said.

After a near three-year absence from the world stage, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has embarked on a whirlwind of face-to-face meetings with world leaders at the Group of 20 summit in Bali, as he looks to reassert China’s global influence.

In a sign of his busy schedule, the Chinese leader and the French president had a meeting early on Tuesday before the G20 summit started.

A statement from the Chinese state media said that the Chinese president told them that China wants a ceasefire, a stop to war and peace talks.

France, like other European countries, has hardened its position on China in recent years, increasingly viewing the country as a competitor and security concern.

In order to stay in China, the most effective way forXi to handle his diplomatic activities was with virtual summits and video conferences.

Although ties between Beijing and the Australian capital have deteriorated over the years, there is a chance that the two countries will meet on Tuesday.

The two countries have been locked in a bruising trade dispute and diplomatic freeze since early 2020, when China slapped tariffs on Australia following its call for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus.

Having the meeting alone is a successful outcome, pointing to the lack of dialogue at the top level for years.

The Perfect Moment for the Australia-China Geopolitical Commission: The End of the War for Russia and the First Russian-Ukraine War

“It is not in Australia’s interest to not have dialogue with our major trading partners,” he told reporters, adding that there are no preconditions for the meeting.

“Core Chinese objectives such as its South China Sea, Taiwan and South Pacific policies are fundamentally at odds with Australia’s core interests,” said Australian policy expert John Lee, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington and former national security adviser to the Australian government.

Frida Ghitis was a CNN producer and correspondent. She is a weekly opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

A well-functioning democratic process in the US is likely disappointing to Xi and other autocrats hoping that deep divisions not only continue to weaken the country from within but also prove that democracy is chaotic and ineffective, inferior to their autocratic systems, as they like to claim. The midterms brought the American President to the table with a stronger hand to play.

That’s not the only reason, however, why this was the perfect moment — from the standpoint of the United States and for democracy — for this meeting to occur: There’s much more to this geopolitical moment than who controls the US House of Representatives and Senate.

In a major victory for Ukraine that Zelensky called “the beginning of the end of the war,” Russian forces abandoned Kherson to avoid a battlefield rout. The Western-backed Ukrainians continue their successful push against the invasion that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched in February just days after meeting with Xi in Beijing.

Moscow and Beijing have drawn closer in recent years, with Xi and Putin declaring the two countries had a “no limits” partnership weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Putin and Xi, the world’s leading autocrats, looked ascendant, unstoppable even. Protests against Covid-19 restrictions made Western democracies uneasy. Putin prepared for victory in Ukraine. Xi was hosting the Olympics, basking in attention, and preparing to solidify his control of China.

The Ukrainians fought hard to defend their country and as Biden rallied allies in a muscular push to support Ukraine, it turned out to be a disaster.

Tellingly, Putin chose not to attend the G20 summit in Bali, avoiding confrontations with world leaders as he increasingly becomes a pariah on the global stage.

Loss of his father, an auto dealer, and a young boy in Beijing, after the election of his third term in China, CNN sees his story

To be sure, Biden is not the only leader with a strong hand. After getting his third term as leader of China, Xi can now rule for as long as he wants. He does not have to worry about elections, a critical press or an opposition party. He is essentially the absolute ruler of a mighty country for many years to come.

In the competition between the two systems, it is important for them to show that democracy works, that the unprovoked wars of aggression, aimed at suppressing and conquering territory, will not succeed, and that democracy works in defeating attempts to undermine it.

Zhou, an auto dealer in northeastern China, last saw his father alive in a video chat on the afternoon of November 1, hours after their home on the far outskirts of Beijing was locked down.

At the time, they didn’t even realize the snap Covid restrictions had been imposed – there was no warning beforehand, and the apartment building where Zhou’s parents and his 10-year-old son lived did not have any cases, he said.

During a video call Zhou’s father was denied immediate emergency medical help, after he suddenly began struggling to breathe. Zhou and his son made a dozen calls for an ambulance, he said, claiming security guards blocked relatives from entering the building to take the 58-year-old grandfather to a hospital.

A 3-year-old boy died of gas poisoning in a locked down compound in the northwest on the day Zhou lost his father. A young child died after a 12-hour delay in medical care in the central city of Zhengzhou.

Zhou said that he tried to get in touch with the state media in Beijing to report on his story, but they didn’t come. Amid growing desperation and anger, he turned to foreign media – despite knowing the risk of repercussions from the government. CNN uses his name to make up for the risk.

The Zhengzhou protests against Covid in the city of Chongqing: a hero’s voice of defiance

In the central city of Zhengzhou, workers clashed with security officers over a delayed bonus payment and chaotic Covid rules.

A man gave a speech about the Covid lockdown on his residential compound in the southwest city of Chongqing on Thursday. “Without freedom, I would rather die!” he shouted to a cheering crowd, who hailed him a “hero” and wrestled him from the grip of several police officers who had attempted to take him away.

Many Chinese football fans who have been unable to watch their team at the World Cup in Qatar because of restrictions on internet access, as well as acts of defiance, were among the online users who expressed their discontent.

“None of the fans are seen wearing face masks, or told to submit proof of Covid test results. Are they not living on the same planet as us?” asked a Wechat article questioning China’s insistence on zero-Covid, which went viral before it was censored.

There are signs that the Chinese officials are feeling the heat of growing public discontent, which came on top of heavy social and economic tolls inflicted by the widening lockdowns.

Instead of relaxing controls, many local officials are reverting to the zero-tolerance playbook, attempting to stamp out infections as soon as they flare up.

The northern city of Shijiazhuang was among the first to stop mass testing. It also allowed students to return to schools after a long period of online classes. But as cases rose over the weekend, authorities reimposed a lockdown on Monday, telling residents to stay home.

On Tuesday, financial hub Shanghai banned anyone arriving in the city from entering venues including shopping malls, restaurants, supermarkets and gyms for five days. Authorities also shut down cultural and entertainment venues in half of the city.

In Guangzhou, officials this week extended the lockdown on Haizhu district – where the protest took place – for the fifth time, and locked down its most populous Baiyun district.

Despite relaxed rules, restaurants were mostly closed or empty in the capital. Businesses have difficulty finding enough staff who aren’t carriers of the disease. Sanlitun, one of Beijing’s most popular shopping districts, was empty despite the fence that was taken down in recent days.

The zero-covid policy isn’t expected to change in the short term. The local governments have not changed their incentive structure. They are still held accountable for the Covid situation in their jurisdiction,” he said.

The Chinese government denied that the 20 measures listed in the guidelines were meant for a pivot to living with the virus.

Zhou, who was living on the outskirts of Beijing, said the zero-covid policy was not beneficial to the majority.

He doesn’t want things like this to happen again in China or anywhere in the world. “I lost my father. My son’s grandpa died. I’m furious now.”

How has China Zero Covid Relaxation Reaction Changed? A frustrated employee in Shanghai admitting he wasn’t so excited about the new measures

Workers across China have dismantled the physical signs of the country’s zero- Covid controls, peeling health code signs off metro station walls and closing some checkpoint since the government unveiled an updated Pandemic policy.

Some people were worried about the impact of the new rules and how they would be rolled out, even as they expressed relief and joy at the measures being loosened.

“The world changed overnight, and that’s really amazing,” said Echo Ding, 30, a manager at a tech company in Beijing. We are getting back to what we used to be. If I don’t get back to normal life, I might lose my mind, which is important to me.

“How can it change so fast?” Ding asked. I feel like we are like fools. It’s all up to them. They said it was good and that is what I feel right now. It is so amazing, but I have no choice. I can’t do anything about the arrangement.

David Wang, 33, a freelancer in Shanghai, said although the changes were welcome, they had also sparked a feeling of disbelief in the city, which underwent a chaotic, more than two-month-long, citywide lockdown earlier this year.

“Of course I was very happy about these new changes – (but) most of my friends are showing typical signs of PTSD, they just can’t believe it’s happening,” he said.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/08/china/china-zero-covid-relaxation-reaction-intl-hnk/index.html

What to do if you are infected with zero-Covid: The impact of the September 7 Presidential Action Plan on China’s health system

Top health officials in Beijing on Wednesday said the changes to the rules were based on scientific evidence, including the spread of the comparatively milder Omicron variant, the vaccination rate, and China’s level of experience in responding to the virus.

Then, on December 7, the central government announced a drastic overhaul of approach, rolling back lockdowns, testing and allowing residents to isolate at home – effectively abandoning zero-Covid.

The dangers of the virus and its long-term effects were stressed by the government and state media, in order to justify the maintaining of restrictive policies.

Even a small number of serious cases could have a large impact on the health system in a country of more than one billion.

On China’s heavily moderated social media platform Weibo, topics and hashtags related to what to do if infected by Omicron trended high on Thursday morning, while there were numerous reports of panic buying of fever medications.

People were not told what to do if they were exposed to an infectious disease. In fact, we should have started doing this a long, long time ago,” said Sam Wang, 26, a lawyer in Beijing, who added that the policy release felt “sudden and arbitrary.”

While Bob Li was a graduate student in Beijing, his mother stayed up all night worrying about him, even though she knew he was positive for the virus. According to Li, the woman finds the virus very frightening.

Wang said that his mother was preparing for a nuclear winter by buying high-grade N95 masks and that she was expecting a wave of cases.

Implications of the COVID-19 Reopening Measure for the Chinese Public-Health System in the Light of Recent Policing Measures

As local authorities adjust to the guidelines, there is a lot of contradiction in their implementation and they are watching to see if it will have an impact in their cities.

In Beijing, authorities on Wednesday said a health code showing a negative Covid-19 test would still be required for dining in at restaurants or entering some entertainment venues – in conflict with the national guidelines.

The move follows the government’s snap announcement last week that it was ending many of the most draconian measures. That follows three years of lockdowns, travel restrictions and quarantines on those moving between provinces and cities, mandated testing, and requirements that a clean bill of health be shown to access public areas.

Some aspects of the rules are open to interpretation, including when and where to test people during an outbreak, what types of areas are high-risk and how to manage them.

Many people in China live in densely populated high-rise buildings, where it will be difficult to limit transmission. Allowing people to quarantine at home will contribute to viral spread, says George Liu, a public-health researcher at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. This could overwhelm hospitals.

The timing of the reopening is not ideal, say researchers. Winter is peak influenza season so hospitals will already be experiencing a rise in the number of patients. And many people will also be travelling across the country for next month’s Lunar New Year and spring festival, further increasing viral spread, says Xi Chen, an economist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who studies China’s public-health system.

According to Xi Chen, China doesn’t have a strong primary medical care system, so people go to hospital for minor symptoms, and he hopes more details on how the government intends to treat them will emerge in the coming days.

If there is no support for the restrictions, businesses might not be able to recover or remove the social stigma attached to COVID-19. “I’m afraid that the health and socio-economic risk will be passed on to individuals.”

Urgent guidance is needed on how to curb transmission during a surge, such as through mask mandates, work-from-home policies and temporary school closures, says Cowling. And given the reduction in testing, it is not clear how officials will track whether cities are approaching, or have passed, the peak of an infection wave, he says.

The government has launched a booster campaign for the elderly, but many remain reluctant to take it due to concerns about side effects. Fighting vaccine hesitancy will require significant time and effort, when the country’s medical workers are already stretched thin.

The death toll can be reduced by 26% to 34%, according to the study, funded mostly by the CDC and the Hong Kong government.

Detection of COVID-19 in China after the Decay of the Mobile Isluggage Card Health Tracking Function

Changes continued Monday as authorities announced a deactivation of the “mobile itinerary card” health tracking function planned for the following day.

It had been a point of contention for many Chinese people, including due to concerns around data collection and its use by local governments to ban entry to those who have visited a city with a “high-risk zone,” even if they did not go to those areas within that city.

With the scrapping of parts of the zero-Covid infrastructure comes questions about how the country’s health system will handle a mass outbreak.

Media outlet China Youth Daily documented hours-long lines at a clinic in central Beijing on Friday, and cited unnamed experts calling for residents not to visit hospitals unless necessary.

A hospital official appealed to people with Covid positive illnesses to stay away from the city’s emergency services line on Saturday because of a surge in emergency calls.

The daily volume of emergency calls had surged from its usual 5,000 to more than 30,000 in recent days, Chen Zhi, chief physician of the Beijing Emergency Center said, according to official media.

A top Covid-19 expert stated in an interview published on Saturday that Covid was spreading rapidly in China.

“No matter how strong the prevention and control is, it will be difficult to completely cut off the transmission chain,” Zhong, who has been a key public voice since the earliest days of the pandemic in 2020, was quoted saying by Xinhua.

The rapid rolling back of testing nationwide and the shift by many people to use antigen tests at home has made it difficult to gauge the extent of the spread.

Some experts warned that China could be underprepared for the expected surge of cases after a surprise move to lift its measures following nationwide protests against the policy.

A booster shot for the elderly should be the government’s top priority as China’s Lunar New Year arrives next month and urban dwellers travel to visit elderly relatives, said the state media interview with Zhong.

Facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, China is setting up more intensive care facilities and trying to strengthen hospitals’ ability to deal with severe cases.

Meanwhile, experts have warned a lack of experience with the virus – and years of state media coverage focusing on its dangers and impact overseas, before a recent shift in tone – could push those who are not in critical need to seek medical care, further overwhelming systems.

Beijing Rejoinds China’s Zero-COVID-19 Decay and Implications for the Economy, Tourism, and Social Media

China’s market watchdog said on Friday that there was a “temporary shortage” of some “hot-selling” drugs and vowed to crackdown on price gouging, while major online retailer JD.com last week said it was taking steps to ensure stable supplies after sales for certain medications surged 18 times that week over the same period in October.

A hashtag trending on China’s heavily moderated social media platform Weibo over the weekend featured a state media interview with a Beijing doctor saying people who tested positive for Covid-19 but had no or mild symptoms did not need to take medication to recover.

People who don’t have symptoms do not need medication. It is enough to rest at home, maintain a good mood and physical condition ,” Li Tongzeng, chief infectious disease physician at Beijing You An Hospital, said in an interview linked to a hashtag viewed more than 370 million times since Friday.

Protesters demanded that the most powerful and authoritarian leader of decades step down in a stunning act of political defiance.

There are concerns that a new wave of infections could overload health care resources in some areas.

At the same time, the government reversed course by allowing those with mild symptoms to recuperate at home rather than being sent to field hospitals that have become notorious for overcrowding and poor hygiene.

The Chinese internet reported that restrictions would be dropped and that travel, indoor dining and other economic activity would soon be returning to pre-pandemic conditions.

China’s leaders had long praised zero-COVID for keeping numbers of cases and deaths low, but Health officials now claim the most prevalent omicron variety poses less of a risk.

Rioting broke out after 10 people were killed in a fire in Urumqi. Many believed COVID-19 restrictions may have impeded rescue efforts. Authorities denied the claims spread online, but demonstrators gave voice to longstanding frustration in cities such as Shanghai that have endured severe lockdowns.

The economy shrunk by 2.6% in the three months ending in June, which the government promised to reduce. The economy might be contracting in the current quarter. In the month of November imports fell by 10.9% from a year ago.

Amid the unpredictable messaging from Beijing, experts warn there still is a chance the ruling party might reverse course and reimpose restrictions if a large-scale outbreak ensues.

The last week’s announcement gave local governments a lot of room to set their own rules. Most restaurants in Beijing, for example, still require a negative test result obtained over the previous 48 hours and rules are even stricter for government offices.

Living in Guangzhou: a case study in Covid-19 tests lifted from a student friend’s house and the knock of a neighbor’s door

The Editor-in-Chief of the China lifestyle magazine, that’s, is Lars Hamer. He has lived in Guangzhou, China since 2018. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. Follow him on Twitter @LarsHamer1. Read more opinion on CNN.

Every resident dreads the knock. Early Tuesday morning, a sudden loud banging at the door of my apartment in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. Instantly, fear washed over me; health care workers in hazmat suits were ordering everyone to go downstairs because a neighbor had tested positive for Covid-19.

I had a reason to be worried. Just one month ago, a teacher friend of mine and his colleagues were sent to centralized quarantine after one student at his school tested positive for Covid-19. I feared the same was about to happen to me.

To my surprise, nothing of the sort. I did not do very well on the Covid-19 test. Before my results came out, I was completely free to leave my house and go about my day.

If this had occurred just weeks before, I would have, like my friend, been labeled a “close contact” and therefore would have been powerless to avoid the quarantine facility’s vice-like grip.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/opinions/china-covid-restrictions-lifted-guangzhou-hamer/index.html

The Guangzhou fever clinic closed in the early stage of a major city-wide virus lockout: A fresh look at a Beijing friend’s pharmacy

I first heard of Guangzhou five years ago when I moved here, and it has become a city of some 15 million people.

In order to prevent blocking of fire exits in the event of a lock out, there is a new measure. Now, people who are infected can isolate themselves at home. Quarantine facilities are soon to be a thing of the past.

There were friends and family who had not seen each other for months at bars and restaurants and we couldn’t keep up with their movements, because the walls had been torn down.

I spent most days working until late at night because it was the only thing to do; non-essential businesses had closed, and millions of people were confined to their homes. I began to feel the strain, too, and started considering leaving the country.

It was a moment of pure disbelief. There were nearly 8,000 cases in Guangzhou that day, similar to the ones that caused a city-wide lockdown in Shanghai in April.

BEIJING (AP) — China’s National Health Commission scaled down its daily COVID-19 report starting Wednesday in response to a sharp decline in PCR testing since the government eased anti-virus measures after daily cases hit record highs.

The commission stopped publishing daily figures of cases where no symptoms are detected because it was not easy to grasp the true number of infections. There are confirmed cases detected in public testing facilities.

Beijing’s streets have grown eerily quiet, with lines forming outside the fever clinics and at the pharmacy where cold and flu medication are hard to find.

Despite a push to boost vaccinations among the elderly, two centers set up in Beijing to administer shots were empty Tuesday except for medical personnel. There was no evidence of a surge in patient numbers despite the fears of a major outbreak.

At the China-Japan Friendship Hospital’s fever clinic in Beijing, a dozen people waited for nucleic acid test results. A nurse in protective gear checks a patient one by one.

A group of people in blue tents wait in line at a hospital in the cold. The person in the queue took out a bottle of sterilant and sprayed it on the other person.

There was a line of people waiting for cough medication at the pharmacy across the street. A sign at the front told waiting customers: “Avoid panic and hoarding, we are doing all we can to stock up to fulfill your medicinal needs.” A man coming out had bought two packages of Lianhua Qingwen, a Chinese herbal remedy, saying that each customer was restricted from buying any more than that.

COVID-19 epidemic in China confronts country’s biggest health systems: Implications for hospitals, funeral homes, and crematoriums

China’s government-supplied figures have not been independently verified and questions have been raised about whether the Communist Party has sought to minimize numbers of cases and deaths.

Since Tuesday, the U.S. consulates in the northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang and the central city of Wuhan have been offering only emergency services “in response to increased number of COVID-19 cases,” the State Department said.

Hospitals have also reportedly been struggling to remain staffed, while packages were piling up at distribution points because of a shortage of China’s ubiquitous motorized tricycle delivery drivers.

Some Chinese universities say they will allow students to finish the semester from home in hopes of reducing the potential for a bigger COVID-19 outbreak during the January Lunar New Year travel rush.

The move follows the government’s dramatic announcement last week that it was ending many of the strictest measures, following three years during which it enforced some of the world’s tightest virus restrictions.

Under the current conditions, a nationwide reopening could result in up to 684 deaths per million people, according to the projections by three professors at the University of Hong Kong.

The research paper, which hasn’t yet been peer reviewed, said the surge of infections could overload many local health systems across the country.

According to the study, lifting restrictions in each province would lead to a demand for 1.5 to 2.5 times of surge hospital capacity.

Chinese social media posts said there was a surge in demand for funeral homes and crematoriums in Beijing recently, although they weren’t officially reported.

An employee at a funeral home on the outskirts of Beijing told CNN they were swamped by the long queues for cremation, and customers would need to wait until at least the next day to cremate their loved ones.

The First Three Months of the China Epidemics: Implications for Schools, Schools, and the Future of Public Sector Jobs in China

Some major cities are experiencing an increase in infections. Schools in the financial hub of Shanghai have started online classes. In the southern metropolis of Guangzhou, authorities have told students that are already taking online classes and pre-schoolers not to prepare for a return to school.

After a weeks-long mass lock down, the city of Chongqing has been declared free of Covid for public sector workers to go to work.

Experts say the worst is yet to come. The outbreak may have peaked in some major metropolises such as Beijing, but it is still happening in less developed cities and the rural hinterland.

The current wave will run until the middle ofJanuary according to the speaker. The second wave is expected to last from late January to mid-February next year, triggered by the mass travel ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday, which falls on January 21.

A huge number of people who have left their hometowns to build a life in China’s fast growing cities use trains, buses, and planes every year to see their family.

China’s partial reopening has been welcomed with joy and relief by citizens, both hundreds of millions isolated inside the country for the past three years, and those overseas separated from their loved ones.

The border remains largely closed to foreigners, apart from a limited number of business or family visits — though the government signaled Monday this could loosen, too.

A New Yorker’s Perspective on Life and Death During the Cold War: An American Perspective on a New York City and the “Second World”

“Finally, everybody can (live) their normal life,” said one Chinese national living in New York, who hasn’t been home for four years. She said the separation was difficult due to the fact that several of her family members and her beloved pet dog had died during that time.

Her family didn’t attend my graduation. She said that they missed many things. I didn’t see many things for my family. All my friends got married during the Pandemic. Some of them had babies. I missed the most important points in their lives.

May Ma, 28, has been unable to go home for nearly three years while living in South Korea. The worst thing about the quarantine requirements had been worrying about her grandparents’ health, and not knowing if she’d be able to return in time to say goodbye if anything were to happen, she said.

She said it was the scariest thing because she didn’t know where the end was. I can finally see the end and I feel happy.

Travel demand in China spiked to a three-year peak on Trip.com during the Lunar New Year holiday season and the impact of cold and flu medicines

Those within China are also celebrating and anticipating outbound travel. Most have stayed in the country for several years, which is why they’re flooding booking sites to plan vacations.

Online searches for outbound flights and overseas hotels jumped to a three-year peak on Trip.com, a Chinese travel booking website, according to company data. Searches for popular destinations increased tenfold within half an hour of the announcement, with many people searching for outbound group tours during the Lunar New Year holiday season in late January, data shows.

Macao, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom were among the website’s top 10 destinations with the fastest growth in search volume since the announcement.

The cold and flu medicines, which were restricted under zero- Covid, were quickly sold out on online shopping sites. Huge lines have formed outside fever clinics and hospital emergency rooms overflow with patients, many elderly. With an increase in bodies, Crematoriums are struggling to keep up.

“I feel like right now it is a mess,” said the Chinese person in New York. Everybody is sick. I think right now is not the right time for me to visit my family. Maybe two or three months later.”

What will Italy do when the Pandemic ends in January? The Italy’s Malpensa airport as a laboratory of the Omicron outbreak

Some overseas destinations are on watch. Officials in Italy’s northern Lombardy region have asked Milan’s Malpensa airport — one of the country’s largest international airports — to conduct PCR tests for all arrivals from China from now until the end of January.

Ma in South Korea said it doesn’t matter if he can get back in time for Spring Festival. I can bear waiting for a bit, there is hope after all.

In its tightly sealed, meticulously managed Olympic bubble, the ubiquitous face masks, endless spraying of disinfectant and rigorous daily testing paid-off. Any infected visitors arriving in the country were swiftly identified and their cases contained, allowing the Winter Olympics to run largely free of Covid even as the Omicron variant raged around the world.

As he prepared for his third term in power, the leadership of the party made itcrystal clear that its political system is superior to those of Western democracies in handling the Pandemic.

The most urgent and daunting task facing China in the new year is how to handle the fallout from its botched exit from zero-Covid, amid an outbreak that threatens to claim hundreds of thousands of lives and undermine the credibility of Xi and his Communist Party.

The next months were spent building larger hospitals, carrying out more mass testing, and imposing wider lockdowns on hundreds of million of people because they weren’t vaccinating the elderly and bolstering ICU capacity.

Protests erupted across the country, on a scale unseen in decades. Crowds gathered to call for an end to the constant Covid tests and lock downs on major cities, with some of them decrying censorship and demanding greater political freedom.

The demonstrations posed a challenge to the president. By then, the Omicron infections had begun to spread and the country’s economic strain was getting too much, with governments running out of cash to pay their bills.

The suddenness of the easing of restrictions has caught the public unprepared, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Now, the true scale of the outbreak and deaths could deal a serious blow to the credibility of a government that had justified years of painful restrictions on the grounds that they were necessary to save lives.

China will resume issuing ordinary visas and passports for tourists to go abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year’s holiday as COVID-19 increases

BEIJING — China says it will resume issuing ordinary visas and passports in another big step away from anti-virus controls that isolated the country for almost three years, setting up a potential flood of millions of Chinese going abroad for next month’s Lunar New Year holiday.

The influx of tourists from China could be a boon for destinations like Asia and Europe that are struggling to make ends meet. But it also presents a danger they might spread COVID-19 as infections surge in China.

The National Immigration Administration of China said it will start taking applications Jan. 8 for passports for tourists to go abroad. It said it will resume issuing approval for tourists and businesspeople to visit Hong Kong, a Chinese territory with its own border controls.

The agency will take applications for visas and residence permits. It said the government will “gradually resume” allowing in foreign visitors and gave no indication when full-scale tourist travel from abroad might be allowed.

Before the pandemic, China was the biggest source of foreign tourists for most of its Asian neighbors and an important market for Europe and the United States.

Japan and India responded to China’s surge in infections by requiring virus tests for travelers from the country. The US is considering taking similar steps according to officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

On Monday, the government said it would scrap quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from abroad, also effective Jan. 8. Foreign companies welcomed the change as an important step to revive slumping business activity.

Chinese-American Relations During the Grinding War: COVID-19 and the Implications for Russia and the Security of the Interplanetary Space Telescope

The American Chamber of Commerce in China says more than 70% of companies that responded to a poll this month expect the impact of the latest wave of outbreaks to last no more than three months, ending in early 2023.

On Monday, the government removed COVID-19 from a list of illnesses that must be isolated due to its classification as a Class B disease. It was said that authorities would stop looking at close contacts and put areas at high or low risk of infections.

The Kremlin said there will be video conferences between the Russian and Chinese presidents, but analysts are keeping an eye on a possible easing of support for the Russian president by the Chinese leader.

The two leaders will mainly talk about their countries’ bilateral relations, as well as share views on regional issues and their strategic partnership, according to the Kremlin.

But more than 10 months into the grinding war, the world looks much different – and the dynamic between both partners has shifted accordingly, experts say.

Instead of an anticipated swift victory, Putin’s invasion has faltered with numerous setbacks on the battlefield, including a lack of basic equipment. The civilians of parts of Russia are facing economic hardship due to low Morale.

Ukrainian officials have said that the missile barrages Russia launched on Thursday was one of the biggest since the war began, causing damage to civilians and infrastructure and killing at least three people.

Ukrainian officials have been cautioning for days that Russia is preparing to launch an all-out assault on the power grid to close out 2022, plummeting the country into darkness as Ukrainians attempt to ring in the New Year and celebrate the Christmas holidays, which for the country’s Orthodox Christians falls on January 7.

China is “ready to work” with Russia to “stand against hegemonism and power politics,” and to oppose unilateralism, protectionism and “bullying,” said Xi. Putin, meanwhile, invited Xi to visit Moscow in the spring of 2023.

China, too, is growing more isolated in its stance toward Russia, said Alfred Wu, associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

Xi Jinping, the State of the Economy, and the Problem of Reopening: A State-Independent Analysis of China’s Real Estate Sector

Modi told Putin in September that now was not the time for war and that he should start moving toward peace.

The Stimson Center said with domestic issues out of the way that Xi is in a better position to work on Russia.

She said that trade had increased this year, and that the leaders of the two countries could continue to cooperate economically.

“The policy tools Xi Jinping can use to support Russia is quite limited now, it’s quite constrained,” said Wu. Domestic support for Xi has declined dramatically. His third term does not actually start with a rosy picture.”

After a tumultuous end to a momentous and challenging year, China heads into 2023 with a great deal of uncertainty – and potentially a glimpse of light at the end of the pandemic tunnel.

Beijing’s recent pivot from its stringent zero-Covid strategy — which had long choked businesses — is expected to inject vitality into the world’s second-largest economy next year.

The economy is dragging on by other factors such as China’s reopening. In 2023, experts will continue to watch how policymakers attempt to fix the country’s ailing real estate sector, which accounts for nearly 30% of its GDP.

But the process of reopening is likely to be erratic and painful, according to economists, with the country’s economy in for a bumpy ride in the first few months of 2023.

Bo Zhuang, senior analyst at a Boston-based investment firm, said he thinks that China is poorly prepared to deal with Covid.

Already, the rapid spread of infection has driven many people indoors and emptied shops and restaurants. More workers are getting sick, and so companies have had to shut down or reduce production.

China’s economic recovery after the first-quarter 2019 financial crisis: a snapshot of the state of the real estate sector and outlook for the next year

The economy is predicted to recover after March. HSBC economists projected a contraction in the first quarter but a 5% growth in the rest of the year.

The crisis in the industry — which started late in 2021 when several high-profile developers defaulted on their debt — has delayed or halted construction of pre-sold homes across the country. That triggered a rare protest by homebuyers this year, who refused to pay mortgages on unfinished homes.

While Beijing has made a series of attempts to rescue the sector — including unveiling a 16-point plan last month to ease the credit crunch — statistics still paint a gloomy picture.

A policy meeting earlier this month saw top leaders vow to focus on boosting the economy next year and to roll out new measures to improve the financial condition of the property sector and boost market confidence.

The measures announced so far don’t drive a turn-around, but policymakers have signaled that there will be support on the way, said the analysts.

Trade had powered much of China’s economic growth earlier this year, as exports were boosted by rising prices of the country’s goods and a weaker currency.

Last month, China’s outbound shipments contracted 8.7% from a year earlier, much worse than October’s 0.3% drop. The Chinese economy came to a near standstill in February 2020 because of the first coronaviruses outbreak.

The sudden lifting of restrictions last month led to an explosion of cases, with little preparation in place to deal with the surging numbers of patients and deaths.

China After The December 26, 2016 Inflationary Cosmic Rejuvenation Revisited: What Will It Mean for China?

Any uptick in China’s growth will provide a vital boost to economies that rely on Chinese demand. There will be more international travel and production. But rising demand will also drive up prices of energy and raw materials, putting upward pressure on global inflation.

Though some residents voiced concern online about the rapid loosening of restrictions during the outbreak, many more are eagerly planning trips abroad – travel websites recorded massive spikes in traffic within minutes of the announcement on December 26.

Some countries have offered a warm welcome back, with foreign embassies and tourism departments posting invitations to Chinese travelers on Chinese social media sites. Many countries have new testing requirements for travelers from China and its territories.

As China emerges from its self-imposed isolation, all eyes are on whether it will be able to repair its reputation and relations that soured during the pandemic.

Neither did the freeze on in-person exchanges among policy advisers, business groups and the wider public by the lack of top-level face-to-face diplomacy.

Communication lines are back open and more high-level exchanges are in the pipeline – with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, French President Emmanuel Macron, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Italy’s newly elected Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni all expected to visit Beijing this year.

In the new year, tensions may again flare over Taiwan, technological containment, as well as China’s support for Russia – which Xi underlined during a virtual meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on December 30.

The war has been a distraction for China and affected its interest in Europe, according to the director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. It is not significant enough for China to give up on Russia.