Trains and buses to and from the region of another 22 million people were suspended and the number of passengers on flights was reduced to 75 percent of capacity, according to reports Thursday.
A regional government statement said the measures had been followed to “strictly avoid the risk of spreading” the virus, but gave no further details.
As is the case with China’s draconian “zero COVID” policy, the measures seemed disproportionate to the number of cases detected.
The National Health Commission announced only 93 cases in Xinjiang on Wednesday and 97 on Thursday, all asymptomatic. Xinjiang leaders on Tuesday reported problems with screening and measures but did not say when they planned to lift restrictions.
The government is desperate not to be called out for new outbreaks in its regions, and Xinjiang is under specific scrutiny by the government’s status quo of a series of prison-style re-education centers in which Muslim minorities have learned to renounce their faith and have reportedly been subjected to a series of human rights violations.
Xinjiang’s vast surveillance system, based on ubiquitous checkpoints, facial and even voice popularity software, and universal cell phone surveillance, has made it easy to move among the population.
An earlier 40-day lockdown in Xinjiang left many citizens complaining of inadequate supply.
“COVID-Zero” has been well known to Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, who is expected to win a third five-year term at the congress that begins Oct. 16. This is despite complaints from the World Health Organization and major disruptions in China’s economy, education and life in general.
Last month, a midnight bus crash that killed another 27 people who were forcibly displaced to a mass quarantine site in southwest China sparked a typhoon of online anger over harsh policies. Survivors said they were forced to leave their apartments even though no instances were discovered.
“COVID-Zero” has been celebrated through the country’s leaders as evidence of the superiority of its system over the United States, which has recorded more than one million deaths from COVID-19.
Xi cited China as a “great strategic success” and evidence of the “significant advantages” of his policy formula over Western liberal democracies.
Yet even as other countries open up, the humanitarian costs of China’s pandemic technique have increased. With the closure of national borders and some provinces, tourism has virtually dried up and the World Bank forecasts the economy will grow at a sluggish 2. 8% this year. . Xinjiang has been hit hard by sanctions imposed on some of its officials and products on human rights grounds.
Even without nationally known criteria, testing and blockades are the norm for tens of millions of people in China, from the North Korean border to the South China Sea, as local officials desperately seek to avoid sanctions and criticism.
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