Chinese President Xi Jinping boasts that his country is a ‘world leader’ in COVID-19 prevention.

China persists with a zero-COVID policy that uses lockdowns, mass-testing and border restrictions to curb local

outbreaks and keep cases extremely low, despite the rising cost of containing the more transmissible Omicron variant. 

This January the International Monetary Fund cut its 2022 growth forecast for China from 5.6 per cent to 4.8 per cent 

citing ‘pandemic-induced disruptions related to the zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy’ as a primary factor. 

Eurasia Group listed China’s zero-COVID policy as its top risk for 2022. But that zero-COVID policy is not going anywhere.

Chinese leaders remain determined to prevent the spread of the virus.  Chinese public health experts who advocate 

-a removal of pandemic controls are still silent   censored, or made to walk back their arguments.  

Why does Beijing stick with this approach?  The most important reason is that Xi has invested significant

for more information visit the website https://www.eastasiaforum.org/  News Source is eastasiaforum