China loosens its anti-Covid tightening in large cities such as Guangzhou, Chongqing, Zhengzhou and Beijing where, timidly, home isolation has only appeared "in some cases" for low-risk infected patients, starting from the most central district populous of Chaoyang.
While the capital is preparing to bid farewell to former president Jiang Zemin, an "immortal" of the Communist Party, amid temperatures that have dropped below zero, as the People's Daily recalled today, in view of the funeral scheduled for December 6th.
The Dragon had almost three years to prepare for a wave of Covid after the virus emerged in January 2020 in the city of Wuhan, but rather than investing in prevention it has concentrated resources on control, based on 'zero tolerance' , lockdowns, mass testing and spartan quarantines.
At present, the infected are compulsorily sent to government quarantine sites, regardless of the severity of the infection, to stop transmission chains.
The new plans for Beijing were reported by Bloomberg, which cited sources close to the dossier.
But the state media did not comment on the easing of the draconian anti-pandemic rules at the basis of last weekend's protests, the largest since the bloody events of Tiananmen Square in 1989. While the meeting of Wednesday of the deputy premier Sun Chunlan, responsible for the fight against the virus, with the National Health Commission and various experts.
"As the Omicron variant becomes less pathogenic, more people are vaccinated and our experience in preventing Covid-19 builds up. Our fight against the pandemic is in a new phase and entails new tasks," noted the deputy prime minister without ever mention the 'zero-Covid',
The words of Sun, known as the 'Old lady of lockdowns', have matured after the protests, and could signal a departure from the rigid posture followed so far to alleviate the anger and frustration of the population, reverse international isolation and try to shelter an economy in dire straits.
It remains to be seen whether the softer tone used by Sun, destined to leave the government in March 2023, will be followed by the facts.
Meanwhile, the cybersecurity authority has called on tech companies to expand censorship of the protests and has taken steps to limit access to VPNs, the WSJ reported.
The leadership, noted the newspaper, is not calm about the wave of protests of the 'white papers' which represents the biggest crisis experienced by President Xi Jinping since he took power in 2012, just weeks into his third and unprecedented term in a row received at the head of the CCP.
In Beijing and Shanghai, protesters chanted slogans demanding Xi's resignation.
While the president of the European Council Charles Michel, speaking of the meeting he had in Beijing with the Chinese president, said that "for the EU, the right to demonstrate is a fundamental right guaranteed by international instruments".
Meanwhile, the coffin of former leader Jiang Zemin arrived in Beijing on a special flight from Shanghai, where the former president died of leukemia on Wednesday: Xi himself welcomed him at the airport.
Jiang's funeral ceremony will be held on Tuesday morning in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square and will be broadcast live.
Posts appeared on Twitter recalling how the death of reformist leader Hu Yaobang (April 15, 1989) triggered the Tiananmen Square protests.
The date of December 6 presents itself as a first delicate passage: on social networks in Mandarin the juxtapositions and comparisons between the era of Jiang and that of Xi have been censored.
While December 10 will be International Human Rights Day, a day that has always been difficult for the CCP.
