Tianjin Tightens “COVID Zero” Restrictions As Volkswagen Closes Plants

The western press has finally caught on to the fact that the CCP is determined to maintain its “Zero COVID” approach to combating the virus that China first unleashed upon the world, even if that means another collapse in trade supply chains and logistics.

As the Chinese wait to see whether the government will impose full lockdown restrictions on the port city of Tianjin (which is roughly 100 km from Beijing, where the Winter Olympics are set to begin early next month), more restrictions on travel have just been imposed on the city.

Bloomberg reports that Tianjin will halt all inbound and outbound buses and taxis as it scrambles to suppress the latest COVID outbreak now that cases of the omicron variant have been confirmed.

Tianjin reported 46 local COVID cases on Wednesday; the city confirmed fewer than 40 cases the day prior.

Meanwhile, the situation in Xi’an – the city of 13MM that has been locked down for 3 weeks now – is going from desperate to… even more desperate.

As the Epoch Times reported earlier, the government in Xi’an has begun literally sealing people’s doors shut as it continues to try and crack down on the virus. Restrictions have intensified despite the fact that the government insisted that the situation was “under control” earlier this month.

And while the government continues to insist that its efforts are having no impact on the economy, Reuters reported Thursday that Volkswagen’s China unit has temporarily shut a plant it runs with its local partner, FAW Group, in Tianjin, along with a factory for producing components that it also runs in the area.

A VW spokesperson told Reuters that the closure was due to a shortage of work-eligible employees.

“Due to the recent COVID-19 outbreaks both the FAW-VW vehicle plant and VW Automatic Transmission Tianjin component factory have been shut down since Monday,” a spokesperson told Reuters.

“Both plants have conducted COVID -19 testing twice for all employees this week and are waiting for the results. We hope to resume production very soon and catch up with lost production. The top priority remains the health and well-being of our employees.”

More than 20MM people are locked down across China as Beijing works to suppress what has become China’s  most widespread outbreak of COVID since the original wave first emerged in Wuhan.