China finally ends Shanghai lockdown after TWO MONTHS China has ended Shanghai's Covid lockdown after two months of residents being stuck indoors.To get more news about shanghai daily, you can citynewsservice.cn official website. The news was announced today with the city's 25 million residents now allowed to leave their home and drive their cars for the first time since April 1. Local authorities had earlier this month said they planned to fully restore normal life by next month but it had not been clear how they would carry that out amid an insistence on sticking to China's zero-Covid policy The news brought about an outpouring of exhaustion from residents, with one taking to the state-owned social media platform Weibo to write: 'I'm so emotional that I'm going to cry'. The easing of curbs applies only to those in low-risk areas, which are home to about 22.3 million people, according to government data. People will still be required to wear masks and are discouraged from gathering and encouraged to get vaccinated. The city-wide lockdown has fuelled public anger and rare protests, as well as pummelled supply chains and China's economy. Residents have heavily criticised the city government over its communication during much of the period. On Sunday, Shanghai announced it was removing restrictions on business reopening, but gave no indication at that time on how it would lift other lockdown measures. It was also unclear whether firms, shops and supermarkets must continue to adhere to a 'closed loop' management system in order to reopen. Companies have called such requirements problematic as they must find ways for workers to sleep on site and carry out regular disinfection. Authorities did not say whether activities such as restaurant dining would be permitted. Bettina Schoen-Behanzin, Vice President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said: 'Shanghai suffered a huge setback and lost its shine during the two months of stringent lockdown measures. 'Although the road to normality is long, these new measures indicate the prioritisation of Shanghai's economic recovery'. Following the announcement, Li Qiang, Shanghai's Communist Party chief and an ally of President Xi Jinping, said city authorities and residents had 'passed the test under extreme conditions and completed the arduous task'. China's 'zero Covid' policy aimed at eradicating outbreaks is at odds with other countries that have opted to live with the virus, and the lack of an exit strategy has worried investors. China's new daily cases are in the hundreds compared with tens of thousands in many Western nations. In Beijing, which is fighting its own smaller outbreak, streets were busier on Monday as more residents returned to work and public transport curbs were eased. But officials said the emergence of a new case outside of quarantined zones after three clear days showed the tall task of quelling Covid. Beijing had reported no cases in the community for three straight days - the best run since its current outbreak began in late April - until a new case surfaced on Monday. 'There was a new flare-up today, indicating Beijing's 'dynamic-zero' mission is arduous and we should constantly be on alert,' municipal government spokesperson Xu Hejian told a news conference. The Beijing districts of Fangshan and Shunyi ended work-from-home rules on Monday, while that requirement has also largely been dropped in the city's biggest district Chaoyang. Public transport has mostly resumed in all three areas.

iQIYI-presented Series The Knockout Achieves Record-breaking Popularity in China iQIYI-presented series The Knockout, which concluded on Feb. 1, received raving reviews from the audience and broke multiple records across platforms during the Chinese New Year (CNY) holiday. The show enjoyed a peak iQIYI content popularity index of 11,800, which broke the two-year record previously held by My Heroic Husband and makes the crime series the show with the highest popularity index in the history of iQIYI. According to data released by iQIYI Research Centre, during the CNY holiday, the popularity of The Knockout drove a 33% increase in users' viewing hours on iQIYI's drama channel. On Jan. 29, iQIYI app topped the App Store rankings in multiple categories, outperforming other popular apps such as WeChat and Douyin.To get more news about the knockout chinese drama, you can visit shine news official website. Capturing the audience with its thrilling story, tight plotlines, well-developed characters, and high production quality, The Knockout breaks the conventional perception typically associated with crime dramas. Since the CNY holiday, the 39-episode drama series, which weaves in scenes from 2000, 2006, and 2021 to depict the two-decade struggle between good and evil, continues to top the rankings charts compiled by prominent third-party data platforms in China. Additionally, the drama recorded strong performance in TV broadcast and reached a record high of 3.8% in its real-time peak viewership index on CCTV-8, the premier channel for drama viewing in China. The Knockout also received critical acclaim from viewers. As of Feb. 7, the show attracted over 460,000 reviews from users on Douban, an influential Chinese media review platform, where close to 90% of the reviewers rated the show four (out of five) stars or above, resulting in a peak rating of 9.1/10 for the show. Over 3,580 trending topics on major Chinese social media platforms featured the popular series, and the related discussions amassed over 100 million views. The show's popularity also generated much attention to its featured elements. From the style and mannerism of particular characters to the lines spoken or even the food featured, the public showed great interest in deepening their connection to different aspects of the show. DAI Ying, Senior Vice President at iQIYI and the General Manager of the Original Drama Division, said during an interview that "The strong user reviews and viewing performance we saw on The Knockout set a solid foundation for iQIYI for the rest of the year. The show is also a confidence-booster for the industry overall: for industry participants, seeing the popularity and influence a piece of high-quality content can achieve marks the beginning of a virtuous cycle.

Taiwanese Election Drama is a Subversive Hit in China A new Netflix drama about Taiwanese campaign staffers has become an unlikely hit among members of China’s middle class, raising troubling questions for its fans about the differences between Chinese and Taiwanese society.To get more news about the knockout chinese drama, you can visit shine news official website. Released in April, the eight-episode “Wave Makers” follows the drama of a fictional yearlong presidential campaign and how it impacts the personal lives of campaign employees, both at the top and bottom of the campaign ladder. The show touches on topics like the death penalty and same sex marriage in Taiwan as well as more complex themes like aging out of political idealism and sexual harassment in the workplace. Key plot points are set against the hustle and bustle of a democratic election, from campaign rallies to heated meetings discussing campaign policies. For Chinese fans of the show, “Wave Makers” has been eye opening — the actions unfold in a similar language and culture as their own, says Chinese YouTuber Yao Zhang who posts from Canada videos about contemporary culture and politics for her 87,000 subscribers. Zhang has closely followed the response to “Wave Makers” on Chinese social media sites like Weibo, where she said the show has been met with a mix of interest, sadness, and self-reflection. “From my perspective, [Chinese viewers] know such things exist as election or free world or democracy, but because this show is in Chinese and also in Taiwanese, it feels real,” she told VOA. “We share the same blood and that makes it feel really powerful seeing an election in action, like democracy in action, and that kind of thing. It touches them a lot.” Comments on Weibo have included users describing how the show makes them feel like they “live in a cage” or they are watching “a whole different world” even though much of the show is written in Mandarin Chinese. “When I see the candidates sometimes, I feel a chill. These characters all speak in Chinese, there is not a single word I don’t understand. I even vaguely remember an explanation or a definition, but I have never seen it,” another Weibo user posted. “Taiwanese dramas are so good. They are really way ahead of us. We speak the same language [Chinese], but gender equality, same sex marriage, environmental protection, abolition of the death penalty, these issues have never appeared in the conversations of our young people. It’s as if they are two separate worlds,” said another.Zhang said she suspects many of “Wave Makers” small but dedicated fan base are educated, wealthy women based on context clues in their posts and the resonance of the show’s sexual harassment plotline showing a high-ranking party member being fired for his actions. Until recently, discussion of sexual harassment was largely taboo in China, but the crime is still difficult to punish. China’s initial vocal #MeToo movement was largely crushed by authorities, but it did usher in some changes. Women in China are also largely locked out of national politics, unlike Taiwan. In “Wave Makers,” many of the show’s main characters are female and the fictional female presidential candidate closely resembles Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen. For others, the show may have resonance because it was released just six months after China’s “white paper revolution” swept the country in late November and early December 2022, said Yang. While much of the protest movement was against harsh “COVID Zero” restrictions, in urban areas like Shanghai and Beijing a small but vocal number of protesters broadened their criticism to include the Communist Party and China’s wider political system. After the protests ended, some of the most vocal participants were detained by authorities in the early months of 2023, much like a similar crackdown on the #MeToo movement in 2021.