China's 'iPhone city' under Covid lockdown after violent clashes

Six million people were on Friday under Covid lockdown in a Chinese city home to the world's largest iPhone factory, after clashes between police and workers furious over pay. Authorities have ordered residents of eight districts in Zhengzhou, in the central province of Henan, not to leave the area for the next five days, building barriers around "high-risk" apartment buildings and setting up checkpoints to restrict travel. There have been only a handful of coronavirus cases in the city. The orders follow protests by hundreds of employees over conditions and pay at Foxconn's vast iPhone factory on the outskirts of the city, with fresh images of rallies emerging Friday. Video footage published on social media and geolocated by AFP showed a large group of people walking down a street in the east of the city, some holding signs. "So many people," a man can be heard saying. AFP was unable to verify precisely when the protests took place. And after scores of workers left the plant Thursday with payouts of 10,000 yuan ($1,400) from Foxconn, posts on Chinese short-video apps Douyin and Kuaishou said the Taiwanese tech giant was turning away many of the thousands of people that had answered its hiring ads after a raft of departures in October.

With China's daily caseload at 33,000 on Friday -- a record for the country of 1.4 billion -- the unrelenting zero-Covid push has sparked sporadic protests and hit productivity in the world's second-largest economy. In the southeastern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou, millions of people have been ordered not to leave their homes without a negative virus test. Social media footage published on Friday and geolocated by AFP showed residents of the city's Haizhu district dismantling barricades and throwing objects at police in hazmat attire. ( Source AFP)