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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Helen Davidson in Taipei

As China looks on at a world opening up, can Xi Jinping survive zero-Covid?

A man on quarantine stands behind the fence looking at a street during the city lockdown in Shanghai, China, 25 April 2022.
A man stands behind the fence looking at a street during the city lockdown in Shanghai, 25 April 2022. Photograph: Alex Plavevski/EPA

Across much of the world people are taking international holidays, returning to the office, and going to festivals and political rallies. Faced with the seemingly unstoppable Omicron variant, they’ve decided to live as close to normality as they can in the presence of Covid-19, limiting its impact. But in Covid-zero China it’s a vastly different story.

An estimated 340 million people in at least 46 cities are under some form of lockdown or restrictions in China, as cases appear in multiple provinces – often in so far tiny quantities.

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