Jiangyin, an icon of China’s manufacturing prowess, buckles under lockdown in latest challenge to zero-Covid policy

Jiangyin, an aspiring tech hub known as one of China’s most economically vibrant towns, has been grappling with a strict lockdown for the past two weeks as total Covid-19 cases climbed past 450 since early May, reflecting the mounting challenges for Beijing’s effort to keep the Omicron variant at bay while maintaining a certain level of economic activity.

The 1.7 million residents of the Wuxi-administered county-level city in eastern Jiangsu province have been under travel restrictions since May 4. They have been told “not to leave home unless necessary and not to leave Jiangyin unless necessary”. A separate notice this week said traffic in the city is restricted to essential companies and workers, which must apply for special gate passes.

Jiangyin, which covers an area slightly smaller than Hong Kong, accounts for over 90 per cent of Covid-19 cases in Jiangsu, China’s second largest provincial economy. This has put huge pressure on local authorities to prevent the outbreak from spreading further.

“We need to be faster than the spread of the virus and stamp out the outbreak in Jiangyin,” Wu Zhenglong, Jiangsu’s newly elected Communist Party secretary, said on Tuesday.

Since the lockdown began, most economic activity had ground to a halt in Jiangyin, which has an economy the size of some provinces and has become an icon of China’s manufacturing capabilities. It is home to 58 listed companies, the most of any Chinese county, such as solar module manufacturer Jiangsu Akcome Science & Technology, fashion group HLA and Xingcheng Special Steel. A Beijing-based think tank ranked Jiangyin as the most competitive county in China last year.