21st Century Business Herald reporter Li Guo reported that on October 28, Dai Rongli, who had been the former vice mayor of Ruili City, posted on his public account with the title of "Ruili Needs the Care of the Motherland": "Ruili lacks a strong economic foundation, long border protection, and round after round of epidemic expenditure, which has overwhelmed the city. ”
Dai Rongli hung up in Ruili for one year from 2018 to 2019. Due to the special authorship, the article quickly spread on WeChat and Weibo, with more than 100,000 hits. As a small border city in Yunnan and the largest land port on the China-Myanmar border, Ruili has once again attracted attention from the outside world. In the early morning of October 29, Ruili City also held a press conference overnight to respond to public opinion hotspots and introduce the recent response to the new crown pneumonia epidemic in Ruili City.
(Screenshot of Dai Rongli's public name.) At present, the number of hits on this article has exceeded 100,000. ）
<h4>Ruili strictly controls the epidemic: "Absolutely no transmission"</h4>
A press release held in Ruili City in the early morning of October 29 said that the epidemic prevention and control is still in a critical period and a tough period, and the epidemic is still sporadic. Since October 1, a total of 19 cases of indigenous covid-19 infections have been detected, including 2 confirmed cases and 17 asymptomatic infected people, and the risk of community transmission and spread remains. At the same time, the recent positive detection rate of overseas returnees has continued to be above 20%.
Media statistics show that since 2020, Ruili has had five epidemics. At present, to enter all public places of Ruili, it is still necessary to hold a negative nucleic acid test certificate of 7 days, and wear a mask, measure body temperature, and scan the code. The city's jewelry trading market and live broadcast venues, cinemas, Internet cafes, KTV, bars, chess and card rooms and other crowded key places are still not allowed to open, and the catering industry is temporarily closed to dine-in.
Under the local government's guideline of "never spreading the epidemic situation", Ruili is still in a "semi-lockdown" state - Ruili City has set up inspection stations in 8 urban areas, and strictly controlled and strictly investigated vehicles and personnel leaving Switzerland in accordance with the requirements of "non-essential non-departure from Switzerland and non-essential non-entry into Switzerland". Personnel in the city's prevention zone (green area) who apply to leave Switzerland due to three special circumstances of illness, bereavement, or official duties may only be released after the implementation of the 7-day centralized isolation measures at their own expense.
In the comment area of the article "Ruili Needs the Care of the Motherland", a large number of Ruili citizens left messages, saying that they were currently having difficulties in life due to the suspension of work and production, and that they had not seen their relatives for a year and a half due to the measures to leave Switzerland.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that the day before Dai Rongli's article, Ruili City also held a special work meeting on the handling of social conditions and public opinions on epidemic prevention and control. The meeting held that the recent public opinion in Ruili City has reflected the difficulties of the masses' production and life, mainly involving the resumption of school, the resumption of work and production, the control policy of leaving Switzerland, and the centralized isolation management, etc. The demands of most of the masses are objective and reasonable. Mao Xiao, secretary of the Ruili Municipal Party Committee, pointed out that the epidemic has brought a serious impact on the production and life of the masses, and the epidemic has fully exposed the problems and deficiencies in the work of people's livelihood security, and all levels and departments should arouse vigilance and deep reflection.
However, in response to Dai Rongli's article, Shang Lapian, deputy secretary of the Ruili Municipal Party Committee and mayor, said in an interview with the media that Ruili does not need foreign assistance for the time being.
Chen Tiejun, a researcher at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, told the 21st Century Business Herald that Ruili Port is the largest land port on the China-Myanmar border, and due to the prosperity of Ruili's jewelry and jade trading, a large number of foreign and foreign businessmen have been concentrated, and the volume of border trade transactions, population size, and urban development level are higher than other port cities.
Especially after 2011, with the establishment of the Ruili National Key Development and Opening Pilot Zone, shouldering the heavy responsibility of yunnan province to build a bridgehead for opening to the southwest, it has promoted the rapid growth of the local permanent population. According to the data of the seventh census, the total population of Ruili in 2020 was 267,600, an increase of 87,000 over the sixth national census in 2010, and the growth rate reached 48.17%.
For a long time, tens of thousands of Myanmar migrant workers or overseas Chinese have lived in Ruili for a long time, but the domestic census does not include these people, and some agencies predict that the actual management population of Ruili City before the epidemic may be close to 400,000.
"There are many land ports on the China-Myanmar border, and Ruili is a key factor affected by the epidemic, and in its special geographical environment, it has not only achieved Ruili, but also hit Ruili hard during the special period." Chen Tiejun said.
(Street scene of Ruili City, taken by 21st Century Business Herald reporter Li Guo in 2013)
<h4>The special geographical environment increases the difficulty of prevention and control</h4>
On the China-Myanmar border, Nyingchi City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture, Baoshan City, Dehong Dai Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Lincang City, Pu'er City, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province border Kachin And Shan States in Myanmar.
The total area of the 7 border cities (prefectures) is about 253,000 square kilometers, the total population is more than 11 million people, the border line is 2,210 kilometers long, and there are 1 air port, 5 national first-class ports and 6 national second-class ports.
Among them, Dehong Prefecture is the only region with two first-class ports, and both are located in Ruili City, namely Ruili Port and Hatamachi Port.
According to the "China Port Yearbook (2018)", among the 77 highway ports in the country, Ruili Port ranks 6th in terms of cargo flow and personnel flow, and vehicle traffic ranks 3rd. The Hatamachi port ranked 39th, 19th and 16th respectively.
The characteristics of the geographical environment are also the reasons for the long-term existence of ruili city's border control problems - the northern part of the China-Myanmar border is located at the junction of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, with primitive forests everywhere and steep valleys; the middle section of the China-Myanmar border is located in the southern extension of the Hengduan Mountain Range in the western part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, and many high mountains have also formed a natural barrier; and Ruili City has a flat terrain and has long been an important area for Sino-Burmese border people to exchange and communicate with each other.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter went to Ruili in 2013 to interview the development of border trade, and an intuitive feeling was that at that time, Ruili, border people were very frequent, hotels of various grades were lined up, the jade trading industry was booming, and a large number of Guangdong and Zhejiang businessmen sought business opportunities here.
In the local famous scenic spot "two countries and one village", the 21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that part of the village is located in China, and the other part is in Myanmar. In the demarcation line between the two countries, there are fields, village roads, and even a small river ditch of less than half a meter, crossing the national border, just "jumping". Local residents can travel between the two countries with border residents' permits, and many Burmese children will go to Ruili every day to attend classes and then "return home" after school.
(China-Myanmar border crossing, outside the red and white railing is Myanmar, 21st Century Business Herald reporter Li Guo photographed in 2013)
This also makes Ruili lack natural geographical barriers compared with other ports or border towns. In 2020, Fu Yongli, an associate professor at the West Yunnan Normal University of Science and Technology, pointed out in a paper that there are characteristics of "strong customs clearance capabilities and weak control capabilities" at the China-Myanmar border crossings. In Ruili, for a long time, the number of people sneaking across the border has also caused border management problems to be at the top of local governments' work for a long time.
Chen Tiejun believes that in addition to the lack of natural geographical barriers in Ruili, the factors that continue to appear in Ruili also include: At present, China has begun to persuade telecommunications fraudsters stranded in Myanmar to return, and these personnel return to China mainly through the Ruili port, although the number of entry places is strictly controlled, but it also increases the difficulty of Ruili's fight against the epidemic. In addition, there has been a war in northern Myanmar, and some refugees will flee to China through various channels, resulting in several cases of secondary transmission of the epidemic imported from abroad in China.
Local governments have also invested a lot of manpower and material resources in strict prevention. On September 21, 2021, Ruili City issued a notice saying that if you report illegal and criminal acts such as "excavating, using underground passages, underground culverts or secret doors, dark windows, dark passages, dark holes, etc. to carry out illegal crossing of the national (border) border", the maximum reward is 50,000 yuan per case.
On September 26, Shang Lapbian, mayor of Ruili City, said that since the launch of the special operation to crack down on border-related crimes on September 16, many cases of illegal crossing of the national (border) border such as "9.25" and "10.01" have been detected continuously, 30 people have been arrested, and multiple criminal chains have been destroyed.
<h4>Epidemic prevention and control problems in border cities</h4>
"In the past, due to the needs of economic development, Ruili built too many hotels, but the capacity building of the medical and health system and the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases lagged behind." A local government worker in Ruili, who asked for anonymity, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
In fact, before the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, Ruili was facing the risk of overseas importation of various infectious diseases for a long time. For example, in 2020, Li Zhoulin, chief physician of the Ruili City Center for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed out that from 2015 to 2019, Ruili City reported that the proportion of Burmese HIV/AIDS cases accounted for more than 70% of new infections for five consecutive years, and the epidemic situation is still very severe, and I hope that everyone will pay great attention to it.
Some academic institutions have also begun to pay attention to Ruili's ability to prevent and control infectious diseases. In March 2021, the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutions jointly published the paper "Risk Assessment of Overseas Importation of Infectious Diseases in China's Border Port Area", which measured the epidemic prevention and control capacity of domestic land border ports (roads and railways), and constructed the risk index of overseas import of infectious diseases in China's border port area from three aspects: port entry circulation, the incidence rate of infectious diseases in neighboring countries and the entry control of border ports.
(A warning sign at the China-Myanmar border: "Those who sneak across the border are fined 500 yuan," li Guo, a 21st Century Business Herald reporter, photographed in 2013.) ）
The results of the paper calculated from 2015 data show that there is only one high-risk port in China: Ruili Port, and the risk index is significantly higher than that of other ports.
The paper believes that "after the establishment of the Ruili Development and Opening Pilot Zone in 2011, border people's inter-market trade, border small trade, and general trade have developed rapidly. Myanmar has a high incidence of infectious diseases and relatively backward health facilities, frequent population movements, and humid and hot climatic conditions increase the risk of the occurrence and spread of infectious diseases. At the same time, there are 15 high-risk ports, including Erenhot, Manzhouli and so on.
At the same time, the paper calculated the epidemic data as of September 2020 and found that Ruili also has a high risk index.
According to the 2020 National Economic and Social Development Statistical Communiqué of Ruili City, the city has 100 health institutions and 1917 beds. Based on the permanent population alone, the number of beds per 10,000 people in Ruili in 2020 is 0.0072; it is comparable that the number of beds per 10,000 people in Yunnan Province in 2020 is 0.0081.
The local government is planning to improve public health in Ruili City. In September 2020, Yunnan Province announced the construction of infectious disease hospitals in six border counties and cities, including Ruili City, and a new biosafety secondary laboratory at the Ruili Cd-OPERATIVE Center has been put into use.
"The staff of Ruili's government departments and relevant epidemic prevention agencies are already very tired, working more than ten hours a day." At 1:00 a.m. on October 29, the above-mentioned person replied to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter, "But if Ruili does not hold, the imported epidemic from abroad will have the risk of spreading to other cities across the country."
The latest news is that at 0-24:00 on October 28, among the 3 new confirmed cases in Yunnan, 2 cases imported from abroad were confirmed in Ruili City.
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