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BRIDES FOR SALE: Pakistan

Bride trafficking has been taking place from Pakistan around the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the $62 billion flagship project of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Pakistan. The practice involved cases of fraudulent marriage between Pakistani women and girls — many of them from marginalized backgrounds and Christian families — and Chinese men who had traveled to Pakistan. The victims were lured with payments to the family and promises of a good life in China but reported abuse, difficult living conditions, forced pregnancy, or forced prostitution once they reached China. According to various media reports, many Pakistani Christian women and girls with a lack of Chinese buyers are killed and their organs are sold! An investigation by News Agency AP in 2019 revealed how Pakistan’s Christian minority has become a new target of brokers who pay impoverished parents to marry off their daughters, some of them teenagers, to Chinese husbands who return with them to their homeland. Many of the brides are then isolated and abused or forced into prostitution in China, often contacting home and pleading to be brought back. Christians are targeted because they are one of the poorest communities in Muslim-majority Pakistan. The trafficking rings are made up of Chinese and Pakistani middlemen and include Christian ministers, mostly from small evangelical churches, who get bribes to urge their flock to sell their daughters. Investigators have also turned up at least one Muslim cleric running a marriage bureau from his madrasa, or religious school. Omar Warriach, Amnesty International’s campaigns director for South Asia, said Pakistan “must not let its close relationship with China become a reason to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses against its own citizens” either in abuses of women sold as brides or separation of Pakistani women from husbands from China’s Muslim Uighur population sent to “re-education camps” to turn them away from Islam. Statistics Recently, there were several media reports suggesting that Pakistani girls were being lured into marriage contracts and then used for prostitution in China. One such report in 2019 put the number of such Pakistani girls at 600. The report also claimed that the average per ‘bride’ earnings was from USD 25,000 to 65,000, but a paltry amount of PKR 200,000 (~USD 800$) was given to the family. The exact number of women trafficked is not released by the Government of Pakistan. Routes Some women are trafficked to China along the route of China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and other are trafficked via sea route. Due to the close relationship between the two countries and the nature of regimes, the actual number of victims and the routes of trafficking are underreported or unreported. Attempts to whitewash by China China has issued a lot of clarifications and tried to whitewash the grave crime it has committed with respect to sex trafficking.

BRIDES FOR SALE: India

Editor3 years ago3 years ago02 mins

In India the modus operandi used by the Chinese for Brides Trafficking is different. Online dating applications like 2redbeans are flooded with profiles of Chinese Men. These profiles are then advertised to local service providers and matrimonial sites to target Indian women. Propaganda Youtube channels are created showing Indian women happily married to Chinese men. Other than this, Indian women from the North-East states bordering Myanmar are lured to enter Myanmar from where they are trafficked to China and other South East Asian countries. Propaganda is also done through Youtube channels. Chinese grooms can be seen in these videos with Indian women happily living after marriage in China. They are made to dance to Bollywood songs to get acceptance in Indian society. Routes Women trafficking from major cities in India is still at a nascent stage but from the North-Eastern states of India took place through Myanmar as the transit country at a much larger scale. India and Myanmar have a porous border with poor boundary demarcation. Women in the bordering areas in search of work or fire woods crossover to the bordering districts of Myanmar from where they are trafficked.

BRIDES FOR SALE: Laos

Editor3 years ago3 years ago04 mins

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered poverty and economic downturns in the rural heartlands of Laos, fueling an upsurge in the trafficking of women and girls to China. Poor and illiterate women and girls who are desperate to find jobs are being deceived and lured into the sex trade and false marriages in China. Police are investigating more than 20 cases of underage Lao girls trafficked into China in 2021. Statistics At least 3,000 (reported) Lao women and girls were tricked into moving to China between 2008 and 2018 in spite of government education efforts aimed at stopping the trade. They offer up to 40 million kips (~USD 4,000$) ‘dowry’ to girls or women in poor families in rural areas, saying all they have to do is go to China and marry Chinese men,” she said Routes Laos is a landlocked country and shares borders with China, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. It acts as a transit country for all its neighbors and a source country for brides to China. The lax management at border crossings resulting from the insufficient training of provincial and district-level immigration authorities especially enables illegal entry and exit from Laos. Additionally, Chinese traffickers have begun working with Lao middlemen to facilitate the transit of victims across borders. In NorthWest Laos the hub of all illegal activities and sex trafficking is the Golden Triangle SEZ. There is a significant presence of Chinese businessmen and natives in the SEZ and women from all over South East Asia, particularly from Laos, are brought here as brides and then used in prostitution or trafficked to China. The ordeal of Laotian Women A 25-year-old woman living in the capital Vientiane was trafficked to China last year, and was later rescued by police and sent back home. Speaking to RFA the young woman said she had been told by a neighbor that she could find good work in China. She said, “A woman in my village told me that she was married to a Chinese man, and she convinced me to go to China to get a good job. I decided to follow her advice, but in China, I was sold to a Chinese man instead of getting the job, and I was detained in the man’s house for four months. Later, I escaped somehow”.

BRIDES FOR SALE: Vietnam

Editor3 years ago3 years ago08 mins

It has been reported that in the rural mountains of Vietnam, young girls are disappearing from their homes with increasing regularity. Many turn up across the border, sold as wives for the price of a buffalo. There, they are generally first sold into prostitution in big cities. After several months or years of forced sex work, they are sold again – this time to poor, older Chinese men looking for wives. Other Chinese bachelors use professional marriage brokers to meet Vietnamese women. Statistics On average, a broker makes a profit of USD 4,000$ out of each deal, according to the Chinese magazine China Reform. Vietnamese and Chinese authorities reported court cases that involved trafficking for marriage from rural areas in the north of Vietnam to China. Cases referred to include that of a Chinese man who engaged Vietnamese persons with local knowledge to find girls for marriages in China at the price of 10,000 yuan (approximately USD 1,500$) for each girl recruited. The recruiters then moved the victims across the border into Chinese territory where the victims were sold for marriage for the agreed-upon price. (Global report on trafficking in persons 2018) According to a 1999 survey by Dongxing Women’s Federation, 1,269 Vietnamese women are living in the city with a population of 120,000. Of them, 647 are married to local residents without going through legal formalities. Statistics from Dongxing Public Security Bureau indicate that 242 Vietnamese women are involved in the 74 trafficking cases recorded since The Pingxiang Public Security Bureau rescued 13 Vietnamese women between 1992 and 1997. All of them had been sold for “marriage” in China. In 2000, the bureau rescued 103 Vietnamese women, nearly half of whom had been forced into prostitution. According to Wei Xiaoning, director of the Women’s Rights Department of the Guangxi Women’s Federation, Guangxi police rescued and expatriated a total of 1,030 Vietnamese women during the crackdown in 1990. To date, 231 of these women have been rescued. According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the authorities saved about 7,500 people from trafficking between 2012 and 2017, almost 90 percent of them women and children, especially girls. Between 2012 and 2018, local authorities foiled 48 trafficking cases. Some 85 traffickers were arrested, and 78 victims were rescued. In 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, provincial authorities helped repatriate 60 Vietnamese women and infants taken to China. More than 1,000 cases were detected by June 2019 involving 2,600 victims. In 829 of them, the traffickers sold 2,319 people to China, according to ministry data released at a meeting on Tuesday. Routes Many cross-cultural relationships begin when Chinese men meet their future wives while working in Vietnam. Vietnam and China share a 1,000-mile, largely unprotected border without major natural barriers. The two countries have forged close economic ties through a free-trade agreement effective since 2010. Citizens from border areas of both countries don’t need a passport to cross back and forth. The destination for trafficking has extended from border regions to inland provinces such as Henan, Hebei, Anhui, Jiangsu, and Guangdong. Criminal organizations operating in the Northern province are mainly concentrated in three border locations: the city of Móng Cái, plus Bình Liêu and Hải Hà districts. In particular, Móng Cái – which has a border crossing – is now the main hub for human trafficking. One reason is that Chinese citizens entering Vietnam here do not need a visa for up to 15 days. Dongxing City, at the southwest tip of the Guangxi Autonomous Region in China, shares a 33-kilometer borderline with Vietnam, where border trade between the two countries is carried out. Women and children are trafficked using this route. Some women are also trafficked using the sea route as depicted on the map. The ordeal of Vietnamese Women Ha Thi Phan, 32, is from Mai Pha Commune in Lang Son in northeast Vietnam. She was a divorcee who became a coolie in 1991, carrying goods across the border day after day. “One day,” she recalls, “my hirer told me that if I go further into China I could earn more money. So I did, leaving my children to an acquaintance.” But on her way she was led to a Chinese woman who later sold her to a Chinese man in Ningming County, about 40 kilometers from Pingxiang, also a Chinese border town. The “couple”, so to speak, could hardly communicate because Hadid does not speak Chinese. “The man often beat me,” she says. “To win his trust I decided to have a baby with the man.” In 1993, two months after the baby was born, Ha persuaded the man into letting her go back to Vietnam and see her parents. “I made him believe that my parents were seriously ill and wouldn’t live long,” she says. In another case, Phạm Thị Minh T lives in the Mekong Delta, in south-western Vietnam. The young woman was duped and sold in China when she was 17 years old. There she was made to work in a brothel.

BRIDES FOR SALE: Myanmar

Editor3 years ago3 years ago010 mins

The director of the Gender Equality Network (GEN), Daw May Sabe Phyu, said that every year hundreds of Myanmar women, especially from Shan and Kachin states, are trafficked to China as “brides”. Many are tricked into traveling to China to seek job opportunities, while some are kidnapped and held against their will to be sold to Chinese men seeking wives. Human Rights Watch published a report in 2019 called “Trafficking of Kachin “Brides” from Myanmar to China” based on interviews conducted with the survivors of brides trafficking from Myanmar. According to the report, the traffickers used deceit to deliver women into sexual slavery. Most of the women and girls interviewed were recruited by someone they knew and trusted. Of the 37 survivors interviewed: Some girls said they were drugged on the way and woke up in a locked room. Others were told, after crossing the border, that the job they were promised was no longer available, but another job was, several days’ journey away. Unable to communicate due to language barriers, and with no money to make their way home, many women and girls felt no option but to stay with the person escorting them, even in the face of growing unease. In Myanmar, conditions resulting from conflict, land confiscation, forced relocation, and human rights abuses have spurred widespread landlessness and joblessness, resulting in increased migration to China. Lacking proper documentation, language, and education, Myanmar women are increasingly at risk of trafficking, including forced marriage. Propaganda Videos by the state media To counter the growing uproar against the brides trafficking from Myanmar to China, Chinese state media from time to time release propaganda videos showing happily married Myanmar women living in China, but such videos are also reacted to by the locals sharply. Advertisements for marriages and surrogacy In 2019, residents of Muse, a Myanmar border town in northern Shan state that serves as a major trade hub between the two countries (Myanmar and China), reported seeing advertisements posted on lampposts and building walls. One ad with a headline reading “Invitation for Marriage” in Chinese and Burmese, gives the height, income, and address of an unnamed Chinese man who is looking for a Myanmar bride between the ages of 26 and 32. The ad also provides a contact number and says more details can be discussed over the phone. Other advertisements with the headline “Surrogate Mothers Wanted” say a company is looking for women under the age of 25 to carry the babies of Chinese men in exchange for payments of 13,000 yuan (USD 1,900$) a month plus meals and accommodations. The ads also provide a contact number. Statistics Over 7,400 women and girls were estimated to be victims of forced marriage in four districts (Kachin State and Northern Shan State) in Myanmar, with over 5,000 females forced to bear children with their Chinese husbands. According to burmese.dvb.no (archives), Bride prices offered range from 1,500,000 Myanmar Kyats (~USD 700$) to 6,00,000 Myanmar Kyats (~USD 3000$) and they are sold in China at the price of over 2,00,000 yuan(~ USD 30000$). According to the data collected from the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission (MNHRC) and Myanmar Department of Social Welfare following is the number of reported women trafficked from Myanmar to China. (Most of the trafficking of women doesn’t get reported) Routes The majority of the routes are from the Kachin and Shan states of Myanmar directly to China’s Yunnan province. After the Rohingya crisis in Rakhine state, many women are trafficked from Rakhine to Shan state and then to China. Other prominent routes include the trafficking of women from Myanmar to Laos and Thailand as transit. The ordeal of Myanmarese women Seng Moon’s family fled fighting in Myanmar’s Kachin State in 2011 and wound up struggling to survive in a camp for internally displaced people. In 2014, when Seng Moon was 16 and attending fifth grade, her sister-in-law said she knew of a job as a cook in China’s neighboring Yunnan province. Seng Moon did not want to go, but the promised wage was far more than she could make living in the IDP camp, so her family decided she shouldn’t pass it up. In the car, Seng Moon’s sister-in-law gave her something she said prevented car sickness. Seng Moon fell asleep immediately. “When I woke up my hands were tied behind my back,” she said. “I cried and shouted and asked for help.” By then, Seng Moon was in China, where her sister-in-law left her with a Chinese family. After several months her sister-in-law returned and told her, “Now you have to get married to a Chinese man,” and took her to another house. Said Seng Moon: My sister-in-law left me at the home. …The family took me to a room. In that room I was tied up again. …They locked the door—for one or two months.… Each time when the Chinese man brought me meals, he raped me…After two months, they dragged me out of the room. The father of the Chinese man said, “Here is your husband. Now you are a married couple. Be nice to each other and build a happy family.” Other stories of the Myanmarese women

BRIDES FOR SALE: Cambodia

Editor3 years ago3 years ago06 mins

The number of women traveling from Cambodia to China for forced or arranged marriages has surged since 2016 and experienced a further spike since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Cambodian women and girls are coerced and forced into arranged and forced marriages through various means: Statistics According to statements by Cambodian government officials, out of 112 trafficked brides who returned to Cambodia in 2019, 111 returned from China. Based on the reports by various organizations and police actions, it is estimated that more than 10,000 women from Cambodia are trapped in China. Routes According to Cambodia’s Trafficked Brides Report by Global Initiative, the route of trafficking from Cambodia to China changed from a land/air route to a land/water route due to stricter regulations in the transit countries like Vietnam in 2016. It changed further in 2020 to just air routes since the COVID-19 pandemic 2020. Following is a representation of the same. The ordeal of Cambodian Women Cambodian women who have returned from China described experiences of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, confinement, torture, and forced labor. Here is one example of the same: Neath (pseudonym), 27, was lured to China with the promise of well-paid employment. Neath and her cousin Noun (pseudonym) caught a flight from Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, to Guangzhou. They had tourist visas but little money, so the brokers facilitating their journey provided them with cash to bribe any border guards who might grow suspicious. A Khmer woman and her Chinese husband greeted the girls at the airport. The cousins didn’t realize something was amiss until the woman locked them in a rented apartment for several days and allowed a stream of visitors to come to assess them. Eventually, a couple purchased Neath for almost USD 12,000$. They bought her home and forced her to sleep with their son. That was the beginning of her four years in captivity, during which she was forced to work for the family’s construction business for no pay, and to cook and clean for her new “husband” – they were never officially married – and his parents. “I tried to run away three or four times,” Neath says. “But every time they would lock me up and keep me without food for two or three days … They all beat me, my ‘husband’ and his parents.” Neath met a Cambodian woman at a local market in China who promised that she could help Neath escape, but the assistance would come at a price. Neath hadn’t been in contact with her family since she arrived in China, but the woman provided her with a phone to call them and arrange the payment. Neath’s aunt sold her farmland in Cambodia and brought the USD 3,000$ in profit to the parents of the woman Neath met in the market. Once that deal was done, the woman helped Neath escape, along with two other Cambodian women who were also running away from forced marriages. Neath says the woman and her Chinese husband regularly earned money helping Cambodian women flee China. Source: https://www.globalcitizen.org/fr/content/cambodia-women-escape-slavery-as-brides-in-china/ Read about the other stories of hardships faced by Cambodian women in China: https://www.ijm.org/news/cambodian-woman-rescued-from-bride-traffickers-in-china

BRIDES FOR SALE: A Comprehensive Report on Asian Women Trafficking to China

Editor3 years ago1 year ago08 mins

Report that examines the bride trafficking rackets run by Chinese citizens targeting women of South Asia and South East Asia.

New exposé on the Chinese police stations around the world

Editor3 years ago1 year ago015 mins

Second part of the comprehensive Investigative Report on the Chinese police stations around the world with maps and locations..

Is Qatar FIFA 2022 the Most Controversial World Cup ever?

Editor3 years ago3 years ago110 mins

The latest in the slew of controversies that have surrounded the FIFA World Cup is the blocking of Tod TV by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, disappointing millions of football fans in the country. Tod TV is the popular streaming service of the Qatari broadcaster BeIN and is the FIFA World Cup’s official streaming platform. While the reasons for this sudden action on behalf of the Saudi authorities are unclear, it is not helping Qatar’s case which is already neck-deep in controversies around the tournament. It is yet another addition to the many issues being raised with respect to Qatar’s suitability as a football World Cup host, the fairness of the entire bidding process, the problems created by the local climate, and the ever-emerging news on human rights violations happening in the country. Bribing the FIFA officials to win the bid to host the World Cup The most controversial issue surrounding the World Cup is the alleged corruption by the Qatari authorities in winning the bid to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Qatar was accused of providing more than $3 million to FIFA officials as bribes in exchange for the bid to host the 2022 edition. Though the allegations were later dismissed, this was not the first time such allegations of corruption were leveled against FIFA. Russia and Brazil too brought to the surface similar allegations against the working of FIFA. The lack of infrastructural preparedness The unsuitability of Qatar to host such a massive and significant football event has prompted another set of issues around the tournament. The lack of infrastructural preparedness is the biggest of these issues. Neither did they have world-class stadiums, nor enough hotels to accommodate the swarms of football fans that were likely to flood the country to watch the games. The primary reason perhaps is Qatar’s limited history in the sport itself. Given the lack of football culture in Qatari society, it makes little sense to bid for such a large event. The adverse climate The climate is the second big reason why Qatar is a terrible choice of place to host the event. The hot and humid climate of Qatar is a nightmare for any outdoor sporting event, turning it into a health hazard for not just the incoming fans but also the thousands of workers engaged in building the required sports infrastructure. Most of these workers were migrants coming from Southeast Asia and Africa, who over the last several months ended up being trapped in very abusive working conditions. The extensive construction in the run-up to the tournament, including the building of seven new stadiums and about a hundred hotels took a massive toll on not only the health but also on the lives of these workers. The exploitation of the workers and the Kafala System The manner of treatment meted out to the workers employed to complete various infrastructure projects in a speedy manner right before the tournament has prompted public outrage across the globe. The Kafala system practiced in the Middle-eastern countries has been a source of controversy for a prolonged period of time. It is primarily a system put in place to heavily monitor migrant laborers, putting the Gulf-based employers of these workers in-charge of their visa and legal status and giving them the reins to exploit these workers as they deem fit. Interestingly, various global publications had not only predicted but also warned against the potential abuses and death that workers were likely to face in the build-up to this tournament. Unfortunately, most of these warnings were ignored by the world as we waited for them to turn true. In August 2022, the Qatari authorities arrested and deported over 60 migrant workers from Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Egypt, and the Philippines, who were protesting against the non-payment of wages by their employer, the Al Bandary International Group. Some of these demonstrators had not received their wages for months. The death of the construction workers The exact number of deaths of migrant workers is still unknown. Some estimates, including one by the Guardian, report that at least 6,500 migrant workers have died since 2010 when Qatar won the bid to host the World Cup. The Qatari officials, as expected, deny these figures. The official figures state that 37 people have died while working on projects related to the football tournament and eventually 34 of those deaths were deemed unrelated to the job. Since then, human rights groups across the globe have been demanding further investigations into these deaths facilitated by this systematic modern-day slavery regime in the Gulf. The Religious Extremism The religious extremism of the country is perhaps the icing on the cake, making it the most problematic location ever to host the event. Being the first Muslim country to host the event, it is bringing its own flavor to the event. Similar to other countries in the region, Qatar has guardianship laws that put several restrictions on the liberties of women, including their rights to make work-related decisions, seek education, and even certain aspects of healthcare being dependent on the permission given by the male family members. In addition, homosexual relationships between consenting men are illegal in Qatar and can result in imprisonment of one year. Reports of harassment, abuse, and forced conversion therapies are not rare in Qatar. It, therefore, came as a surprise to everyone that FIFA, while being well aware of Qatar’s stand against homosexuality, still went on and approved its bid. It went as far as saying that LGBTQ fans can ‘refrain’ from sexual activities while in Qatar. Lastly, much to the disappointment of millions of fans, mere two days before the tournament, FIFA confirmed that no alcohol would be sold inside the stadiums, in line with the high amount of restrictions on the sale of alcohol in Qatar. Perhaps Qatar had high hopes with respect to the FIFA World Cup hosting, hoping to elevate its status as the Middle East region’s sporting hub and help its case in becoming a regional…

Amid growing protests, China cautiously mulls relaxing zero-COVID rules: analysts

Editor3 years ago09 mins

There are signs that China is mulling less draconian public health controls amid ongoing protests in the streets and on university campuses, political analysts say. The Chinese government released a package of 20 new policy measures on Nov. 11 aimed at “optimizing” the country’s pandemic response, including slightly relaxed quarantine requirements for people returning home from areas designated “high risk.” The move has generally been seen as a cautious relaxation of the zero-COVID policy, espoused by Communist Party leader Xi Jinping as the only way forward when it comes to containing the virus, and comes amid growing public dissatisfaction with the policy and widespread censorship of dissenting voices. University students in the central city of Zhengzhou protested over long-running restrictions on Nov. 16, according to video clips uploaded to social media sites. One video clip showed masked young people in a heated discussion with an official in a black jacket, urging him to read the students’ demands, a copy of which was also circulating on social media. In a second clip, the Zhengzhou University students start shouting at the official in frustration after he appears to stall. “Looks like you’re not going to address a single one of these issues for us here tonight,” says one protester. Social media posts said the university’s Communist Party secretary came out to talk with students, but a live stream of the conversation was later blocked and student dorms searched by security officials. Protests in Guangzhou, Urumqi and Lhasa The students’ resistance to nationwide campus lockdowns followed street protests by migrant workers who broke out of lockdown in the southern city of Guangzhou, as well as protests in Urumqi and Ghulja in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, and the Tibetan capital Lhasa in recent weeks. Reports have emerged that the northern city of Shijiazhuang could be a pilot zone for a slightly more relaxed approach to mass testing. The Financial Times reported on Nov. 15 that the city is “tiptoeing away from Beijing’s most draconian pandemic measures, in what some see as a test case for a gradual retreat from President Xi Jinping’s strict zero-Covid policy.” People line up to be tested for COVID-19 on Flower City Square in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, Nov. 16, 2022. Credit: cnsphoto via Reuters Widespread rumors that the city is gearing up to “live with COVID-19” prompted the city’s party Secretary Zhang Chaochao to deny the move on Nov. 14, promising that the municipal authorities wouldn’t “lie flat” in the face of the threat from the virus. Former Chinese Red Cross Director Ren Ruihong said the government is announcing looser restrictions from Beijing, but leaving it to local officials to decide how best to control the virus locally — an issue that figures highly in government key performance indicators and therefore affects individuals’ career prospects. “The central government will gradually relax its pandemic prevention guidance, even if only to deflect public dissatisfaction from itself,” Ren told Radio Free Asia. “The situation with regard to different opinions [about how to implement the measures on the ground] is pretty chaotic right now, with the central government unwilling to take the blame.” This has left room for variation in local pandemic prevention policies, and caused a “disconnect” from Beijing, Ren said. This has resulted in an ongoing and severe lockdown in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing, while requirements for testing in Shijiazhuang have at least partly been dropped, according to a resident there who spoke to RFA. Still need negative PCR tests People returning to the city from low-risk areas still need a negative PCR test from the past 48 hours, and need the permission of their residential committees to return home. The same requirements apply to anyone leaving the city. While confusion remains over whether kindergarteners still need a recent negative test to attend school, resident Sun Liang said regular testing regardless of a person’s movements has been dropped, while “active testing” is still in place for travel to certain public places. “You still need a negative PCR from the past 24 hours to get into an office building, and a negative result from the past 48 or 72 hours to ride the subway or the bus,” Sun told RFA. Some districts appeared to be just as confused as residents by what was happening in their city, shutting down test stations only to reopen them a day later, according to social media posts. But Sun said the city is likely being used as a guinea pig for the rest of China. “It is indeed being used as a pilot, but it’s just not being totally freed from restrictions as some people have been saying,” he said. “If they totally removed all restrictions, then there might be a backlash in which people think the government doesn’t care what happens to them.” “A lot of pharmacies are now selling drugs you can take orally for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, which may be an even bigger sort of pilot,” he said. The Financial Times cited several residents of Shijiazhuang as saying that the idea of loosening restrictions made them fearful of catching the virus. Veteran U.S.-based rights activist and political commentator Yang Jianli likened China’s COVID-19 policy to “riding a tiger.” “This is caused by the fact that Xi Jinping and the Chinese government failed to import internationally made vaccines in time in the wake of the Wuhan lockdown,” Yang said. “The Chinese government is in a dilemma right now. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.” Translated and written by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.

Category: World