Downtown Beijing goes quiet as zero-COVID policy smothers capital

Beijing residents fear they may soon find themselves in the grip of the same draconian measures that have trapped most of Shanghai's 25 million people at home for several weeks

Millions of people in Beijing stayed home on May 9 as China's capital tries to fend off a COVID-19 outbreak with creeping restrictions on movement.

Beijing residents fear they may soon find themselves in the grip of the same draconian measures that have trapped most of Shanghai's 25 million people at home for several weeks.

Officials there have said the eastern powerhouse is winning its battle against the country's worst outbreak since the pandemic began. Yet the Shanghai lockdown has intensified, causing outrage and rare protest in the last major economy still glued to a zero-COVID policy.

That policy has winded an economy which just months ago had shown China was bouncing back from the pandemic. Customs data released on Monday said exports in April slumped to their lowest monthly rate since June 2020, as key supply chains became knotted by restrictions.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China found that many of its member companies in Shanghai were still shut, with others delaying investments across the country in the face of the disruption. In the face of "the world's most extensive and unpredictable quarantine requirements", chairman Colm Rafferty warned the business community was "bracing for a mass exodus of foreign talent".

There is also a pressing political dynamics to China's virus response, with President Xi Jinping pegging the legitimacy of his leadership to protecting Chinese lives from COVID-19.

Xi — expected to secure another five-year term as President later this year — has doubled down on the zero-COVID approach, despite mounting public frustration.