China Fortifies Its Borders With a Southern Great Wall, Citing Covid-19 – WSJ

An extensive buildup of barriers along China s 3,000-mile southern border is under way, according to public documents, official statements and interviews with residents, ostensibly to battle Covid-19 but with likely long-lasting ramifications on trade and travel.

The small Chinese city of Ruili, in the far south next to Myanmar, has seen a major construction project in the past two years. It is a border fence equipped with barbed wire, surveillance cameras and sensors.

Farther east, along China s border with Vietnam, a 12-foot-high fence went up abruptly last year. It stops Vietnamese locals from heading to Chinese villages to harvest corn or sell medicinal herbs, and it looks like a prison, said Sung A Ho, a hotelier in Vietnam s mountainous Lao Cai province.

The avowed purpose is to fight the spread of Covid-19 by limiting the entry of traders, workers and smugglers. The Southern Great Wall, people on social media are calling it. State media outlets have dubbed it the Anti-Covid Great Wall.

via www.wsj.com

Anti-Covid. That’s perfect.