As COVID-19 cases in China sink to new lows, the world’s largest population of university students is heading back to campus in a migration defined by lockdowns, patriotic education and cutting-edge surveillance equipment. 

The highly choreographed return comes as Chinese universities revert to in-person instruction for the fall semester after months of pandemic controls.

Some universities have strict rules governing how students eat, bathe and travel. Students in Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai told Reuters that they must submit detailed movement reports and stay on campus.

“But they haven’t yet told us the specific application process or what reasons will be considered reasonable,” said one student at Beijing’s Renmin University.

Renmin University did not respond to a request for comment. A notice on its social media account confirmed students must apply to leave campus.

At the same time, government procurement documents show dozens of universities have purchased “epidemic control” surveillance systems based on facial recognition, contact tracing and temperature checks. 

There are more than 20 million university students in China, and most live on campus in shared dorm rooms, presenting a challenge for health authorities. 

On Chinese social media, students have chafed at the controls, which mirror restrictions on the wider population during the height of the outbreak in March.

Responding to the criticism last week during a media briefing, officials from China’s Ministry of Education said that the measures weren’t compulsory for universities, but that students should not leave campuses unless necessary.

HI-TECH SURVEILLANCE

Procurement documents posted online in the past two months by dozens of Chinese universities give insight into campus life in the COVID era, detailing technology systems designed to bar outsiders and collect students’ data.

Many systems call for dozens of cameras that can collect facial data and temperatures, as well as notification systems that require students to enter information multiple times a day. The platform compiles a daily “body temperature report”, and stores students’ historical temperatures for 30 days.

SHOWER BOOKINGS

The new rules have also given rise to more mundane challenges, students said. 

Students returning to Nanjing University said they struggled to book time in the dormitory showers between disinfection rounds.

Source: Reuters

Also Read:

JAPAN’S ‘FLYING CAR’ GETS OFF GROUND, WITH A PERSON ABOARD

WORLD’S FIRST VIRTUAL ART MUSEUM VOMA SET TO OPEN IN SEPTEMBER

APPLE TO LAUNCH ITS OWN WEB-BASED SEARCH ENGINE

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR WHEN BUYING A GAMING SMARTPHONE

TOYOTA LAUNCHES NEW YARIS CROSS COMPACT SUV WITH HYBRID OPTION

FORD, BOSCH, BEDROCK PARTNER ON AUTONOMOUS PARKING

China became the first major economy to grow since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, recording an unexpectedly strong 3.2% expansion in the latest quarter after anti-virus lockdowns were lifted and factories and stores reopened.

Growth reported Thursday for the three months ending in June was a dramatic improvement over the previous quarter’s 6.8% contraction — China’s worst performance since at least the mid-1960s. But it still was the weakest positive figure since China started reporting quarterly growth in the early 1990s.

“We expect to see continuous improvement in the upcoming quarters,” Marcella Chow of JP Morgan Asset Management said in a report.

China, where the coronavirus pandemic began in December, was the first economy to shut down and the first to start the drawn-out process of recovery in March after the ruling Communist Party declared the disease under control.

“The national economy shifted from slowing down to rising in the first half of 2020,” the National Bureau of Statistics said in a statement.

Economists say China is likely to recover faster than some other major economies due to the ruling Communist Party’s decision to impose the most intensive anti-disease measures in history. Those cut off most access to cities with a total of 60 million people and suspended trade and travel — steps later imitated by some Asian and European governments as the virus spread.

Manufacturing and some other industries are almost back to normal. But consumer spending is weak due to fear of possible job losses. Cinemas and some other businesses still are closed and restrictions on travel stay in place.

“The pandemic is creating winners and losers,” said Bill Adams of PNC Financial Services Group in a report. “Manufacturing is leading China’s recovery.”

Private sector analysts say as much as 30% of the urban workforce, or as many as 130 million people, may have lost their jobs at least temporarily. They say as many as 25 million jobs might be lost for good this year.

The ruling party promised in May to spend $280 billion on meeting goals including creating 9 million new jobs. But it has avoided joining the United States and Japan in rolling out stimulus packages of $1 trillion or more due to concern about adding to already high Chinese debt.

China reported 4,634 coronavirus deaths and 83,611 confirmed cases. It has not reported any domestically transmitted cases since an outbreak in Beijing that infected more than 330 people before it faded early this month.

On Tuesday, the government eased some curbs on domestic tourism after China reported no new locally acquired infections in nine days. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism said tourist sites can allow 50% of their daily visitor capacity, up from 30%, and tours from one province to another can resume.

In the three months ending in June, factory output rose 4.4%, rebounding from the previous quarter’s 8.4% contraction after factories that make the world’s smartphones, shoes, toys and other goods reopened.

Retail sales shrank by 3.9%, but that was a marked improvement over the previous quarter’s 19% contraction while millions of families were confined to their homes and shopping malls were shut down. Online retail sales rose 14.3%, up from the previous quarter’s 5.9%.

June exports grew by an unexpectedly strong 0.4% but still are off 3% for the first half of the year. Imports rose 3% — including a 10.6% jump in purchases of U.S. goods despite a tariff war — but are down 3.3% so far this year.

Forecasters warn exporters are likely to face another decline in demand as sales of masks and other medical supplies taper off and U.S. and European retailers cancel orders.

“This suggests sustained pressure on employment, currently the government’s foremost policy priority,” said JP Morgan’s Chow.

A potential stumbling block is worsening relations with the United States, China’s biggest national export market, over disputes about trade, technology, human rights and Hong Kong.

The two governments signed an agreement in January to postpone further tariff hikes in their fight over Beijing’s technology ambitions and trade surplus. But most increases already imposed remained in place.

Source: apnews

Also Read:

CHINA AUTO SALES OFF 22.4% IN FIRST HALF OF 2020

HONDA AMONG FIRMS ALLOWED TO RESUME WORK AT CORONAVIRUS EPICENTER WUHAN, CHINA

CAR PLANTS GREENLIGHTED TO RESUME WORK IN WUHAN, CHINA

5G-POWERED ROBOTS CONTRIBUTE TO CONTROL EPIDEMIC IN CHINA

HONDA AMONG FIRMS ALLOWED TO RESUME WORK AT CORONAVIRUS EPICENTER WUHAN, CHINA

JACK MA FOUNDATION PUBLISHES HANDBOOK, SHARES CHINA’S EXPERIENCE IN BATTLING COVID-19

SMARTPHONE SHIPMENTS IN CHINA UP 17 PERCENT IN APRIL, SIGNALS LIKELY REBOUND: GOVERNMENT DATA

Plans for a TikTok sale may have a new obstacle, with China implementing new rules on AI technology exports, The New York Times reported. The new export control rules, which focus on technology the Chinese government considers sensitive, could mean that TikTok’s parent company, Beijing-based ByteDance, might need a license before it can sell TikTok to an American company.

The updated regulations prohibit exporting technology including text analysis, voice recognition, and content suggestions without a license from the Chinese government. According to The Wall Street Journal, a Chinese government official told state-run Xinhua News Agency that ByteDance should “seriously and cautiously” consider halting talks for a sale of TikTok.

Microsoft has been the front runner in talks to acquire TikTok which will apparently involve Walmart, and reports suggesting everyone from Twitter to Netflix to Oracle also were in separate talks with TikTok. Amid all the chaos, TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigned August 27th, less than six months into the job.

President Trump signed an executive order August 6th blocking all transactions with ByteDance, and has demanded that an American company purchase TikTok’s US business. The order was intended to take effect within 45 days. Then on August 14th, the president signed an order giving ByteDance 90 days to sell or spin off TikTok in the US, the culmination of an investigation of the company by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), which oversees foreign acquisitions of US companies for any potential security risks.

It wasn’t clear Saturday whether the Chinese government would seek to block a TikTok sale entirely.

The wildly popular video-sharing platform hit 2 billion downloads globally in April, with 315 million downloads in the first quarter of the year alone.

A TikTok spokesperson declined to comment Saturday.

source: TheVerge

Also Read:

JAPAN’S ‘FLYING CAR’ GETS OFF GROUND, WITH A PERSON ABOARD

WORLD’S FIRST VIRTUAL ART MUSEUM VOMA SET TO OPEN IN SEPTEMBER

APPLE TO LAUNCH ITS OWN WEB-BASED SEARCH ENGINE

THINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR WHEN BUYING A GAMING SMARTPHONE

TOYOTA LAUNCHES NEW YARIS CROSS COMPACT SUV WITH HYBRID OPTION

FORD, BOSCH, BEDROCK PARTNER ON AUTONOMOUS PARKING