Next China: Backing Down

In China, the government usually gets what it wants.

So, Beijing's U-turn on a plan to prevent people in the capital from entering public venues without proof of vaccination raised eyebrows. It’s unclear exactly what prompted the swift change, but Chinese social media users called the mandate an illegal cap on their freedoms and questioned the effectiveness of domestic vaccines.

“It’s likely that when the vaccine mandate became known there wasn’t just public resistance, they also faced opposition from the government,” said Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations, adding that the U-turn reflected a lack of broad political consensus on vaccines.