The 'chunyun': the largest annual migration on the planet becomes an economic thermometer for China. Beijing expects 9 billion trips during the Chinese New Year travel season, triple the number before the pandemic.
The country has almost 300 million rural migrants, of the 1,412 million Chinese, and it is estimated that around a third of the residents of Beijing, of 22 million inhabitants, are technically migrant workers. The travel frenzy, in a certain way, can be taken as a thermometer of the economy, employment and consumption.