Shanghai Expat Exodus Shows Covid Zero’s Enduring Scars
China’s most cosmopolitan city is losing foreign talent after last year’s chaotic lockdown dimmed its allure
Empty roads during a lockdown in Shanghai in April 2022.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/BloombergA year after the lockdown that made Shanghai a byword for all that was wrong with the country’s Covid approach, China’s most international city is showing the effects of a policy that left the nation disconnected from the world.
Home to most foreign company headquarters and a quarter of China’s expatriate population before 2022, Shanghai has seen an exodus since the brutal two-month lockdown that crippled the city of 25 million from late last March. Foreigners like Xenia Sidorenko, a Russian fashion entrepreneur who has called China home for a dozen years, are leaving and foreign investment and business activity in the metropolis have also dwindled.