China expressed “strong dissatisfaction” with the United States on Saturday night (9) after US officials expressed concern about the country’s Covid containment policies.
The day before, the US State Department had authorized non-essential employees at its consulate in Shanghai to leave the city, which has imposed a strict lockdown to contain its worst outbreak of coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic.
The US government also advised US citizens to reassess travel to China due to “arbitrary enforcement of local laws and anti-Covid restrictions”.
As early as Saturday, a spokesman for the US Embassy in Beijing said in a statement that the diplomatic mission had conveyed to Chinese authorities its “concerns” about disease control policies.
China’s reaction came in a statement from Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian. “We express strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the baseless accusations of the US in its statement against China’s policy of preventing the pandemic.”
The Chinese foreign ministry also said that the country’s anti-Covid policy was “scientific and effective”, and that it has provided assistance to officials of foreign diplomatic missions.
The confinement in Shanghai was hastily imposed and included the practice of separating infected children from their families and taking them to quarantine centers, a policy that was later reversed after criticism from the population on social media.
Residents of China’s most populous city, with 26 million people, also report difficulties in buying food, although the government has been distributing food kits to help the population.
The People’s Liberation Army, the name of the country’s Armed Forces, dispatched more than 2,000 doctors from its ranks to assist in testing the city’s population. In addition, another 38,000 civilian doctors and nurses from different provinces were also sent by Beijing, according to local media.
China recorded a record of nearly 25,000 Covid cases on Saturday. The number is low by the standards of contagion in Western countries, but it represents a challenge for the Covid zero policy adopted by the Asian country.
China has recorded 4,638 deaths from Covid since the beginning of the pandemic.
