Life turned upside down in Ruili, China, the world’s strictest zero-Covid city

Ruili, on the China-Myanmar frontier, has endured seven lockdowns that shut off border traffic, shuttered businesses and left residents short of food

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RUILI, CHINA - JULY 10: A bridge is empty at the main urban area amid the coronavirus pandemic on July 10, 2021 in Ruili, Yunnan Province of China. (Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

CREDIT: Getty Images

Bloomberg Businessweek

Published: 11:15am, 23 Oct 2022

China’s 2,129km (1,323-mile) border with Myanmar traverses some of the most rugged landscapes in Asia. Mountains rise as high as 5,800 metres (19,000 feet) above sea level, fast-running rivers flow between steep cliffs, and dense forests shelter giant hornbills, snub-nosed monkeys, and elephants.

The region has never been an economic development priority for either country, and it has few roads and even fewer large settlements. Ruili, a city in Yunnan province of a little more than a quarter of a million people located on one of the only areas of flat land, is the exception.

The city hugs the border, which divides it from Muse, a smaller city on the Myanmar side. For decades, throngs of people crossed the border every day: Myanmese workers looking for factory jobs, Chinese residents visiting relatives, and traders of both nationalities carrying a huge range of goods, some legal, some not.

Such traffic has come to an almost complete halt.

Fencing (foreground) along the Ruili River, on the Chinese side of the border with Myanmar. Photo: Bloomberg

One of the key planks of China’s zero-Covid policy, which views even a single infection as an unacceptable risk, is the closure of the country’s borders, sealing it off from a world that has for the most part decided to live with the coronavirus. Nowhere is the impact of the strategy more obvious than in Ruili.

With the pandemic going largely unchecked in Myanmar, last year Chinese officials began putting up spans of sheet metal, barracks for guards and fences topped with razor wire along the boundary with Muse – structures the mayor dubbed a “Steel Great Wall”.