Journalists queue for a swab test for Covid-19 coronavirus in Beijing prior to China’s 20th Communist Party Congress on October 21, 2022. (Photo by Noel Celis /AFP via Getty Images)
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Large groups of young people can be seen walking in fields and on highways, with suitcases and carrying bags, as they head for home.
Video footage of their trek has gone viral in China and abroad, despite the Chinese regime’s strict censorship.
Some are seen walking through the gates of once-shut fences, and some are climbing over fences to get away from the closed-down premises.
These young people are workers of the Foxconn electronics manufacturing factory in central China’s Henan Province, reported Chinese media, fleeing from the plant after a recent outbreak of COVID-19 that resulted in tens of thousands of employees being locked down under the Chinese regime’s hardline zero-COVID policies.
Foxconn, officially known as Hon Hai Technology Group, is headquartered in Taiwan. It claims to be “the world’s largest electronics manufacturer” and has over 40 production plants in China, according to its websites.
The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, the capital city of Henan Province, has three campuses located in Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone, Zhengzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone, and Zhongmu County. The company is of vital economic and financial importance to the local government of Zhengzhou.
Foxconn’s campus in Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone has 200,000 workers, according to Reuters, and is Apple’s largest iPhone assembly factory in the world. The factory produces “half of Apple’s global supply,” the New York Times quoted Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at TF International Securities, a financial services group. It was China’s third-largest exporter in 2019, exporting $32 billion worth of electronics abroad, according to the Financial Times.
The Foxconn factory hasn’t officially disclosed how many workers have tested positive for COVID-19, but it said in a statement on Wednesday that a “‘small number of employees have been asked to quarantine.”
Heading Home for Safety
Though local authorities and the factory’s management issued notices claiming to offer buses and assistance for homeward-bound workers, tens of thousands decided to leave the factory and head home on foot. The Financial Times described this large-scale fleeing as an “exodus” in its report on Oct. 30.
The majority of the workers are from nearby cities or towns.
Video footage posted online shows that some workers walked out of open doors in parts of the factory, but some had to climb over fences before they could get away.
Police, stationed on main roads, blocked the workers from fleeing, and are seen violently pushing workers, and ordering them back to the factory.
Afraid of being intercepted, workers left the factory’s premises on a Saturday evening, and walked along a highway, through fields, and on rural paths.
A worker from Jiaozuo, a prefecture-level city in the northwest of Henan Province, was stopped at a checkpoint and had to take rural paths to get away. The usual route from Zhengzhou to Jiaozuo is about 50 miles, but one anonymous worker walked over 100 miles to get back home, according to an online post.
Local villagers and residents left food and beverages along rural paths and highways, with signs saying “free supplies for home-returning workers of Foxconn.” Such sustenance was vital to these escaping workers, as they were unable to buy food due to the closure of shops under the lockdown.
The man in the video footage, uploaded on Oct. 31, says that he has set up a supply station for the fleeing Foxconn employees and that he provides the water and food for free.
The video was likely shot before Oct. 31. The Epoch Times wasn’t able to confirm the shooting time.
Chen Hui, an employee of Foxconn, told The Epoch Times that police tried to keep them from entering Zhengzhou’s urban areas.
“We just got out of a grove and bumped into five or six policemen. We were terrified to see them,” Chen recalled. But luckily, the police just left after seeing that Chen and his colleagues weren’t headed for Zhengzhou, Chen said.
“We tried to stay away from local villagers on our way, but they were very kind and gave us directions and food and drinks,” Chen said.
One driver stopped along the highway to hand out fluorescent stickers for the fleeing workers.
“Put the stickers on your luggage to keep safe, because there is no road lamp further ahead,” the driver can be heard saying to the walking workers.
“They are so young; some of them are just teenagers,” the man sobbed.
The Epoch Times wasn’t able to verify the authenticity of the footage, which comprises several clips, and has an unknown shooting time.
Quarantine Awaits Workers in Hometowns
However, when the workers manage to arrive in their hometowns, they must be quarantined.
Cities and counties near Zhengzhou issued open letters to their residents working in Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory, claiming that they are “ready to receive local residents” returning from Zhengzhou, according to Deutsche Welle (DW), a German media outlet.
Yuzhou City, Changge City, Qinyang City, Weidu District of Xuchang City, and Xihua County said in their open letters that the returning workers who are residents of these cities must register their before their arrival and must be quarantined in a central isolation facility for seven days, at the person’s expense, and then quarantined at home for three days.
As the Chinese regime uses a health code phone app to control the movement of Chinese citizens, Chinese people are not free to move around without being noticed.
Fear of Infection and Shortage of Food and Medicine on Factory Campus
Under the Chinese regime’s hardline zero-COVID policies, businesses in China impose stringent measures on their employees.
On Oct. 19, Foxconn’s Zhengzhou factory announced through its official WeChat account that dining in the factory’s canteens was banned and that employees were required to wear face masks at all times except in the dormitory, undergo PCR testing every day, and use designated routes to go to and from work.
Workers are locked down in dormitory rooms and makeshift quarantine facilities with those who test positive for COVID-19, reported Chinese media. Food and medical supplies are in short supply and there is a high risk of being infected.
“The factory has many employees, and the pandemic outbreak is so severe. We feel like [we are] walking side by side with COVID-19 virus every day,” Mr. Li (pseudonym), an employee of Foxconn, told the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times on Oct. 26.
Chinese workers outside the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China, on May 27, 2010. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Days earlier, workers told The Epoch Times that 10,000 to 20,000 employees are under quarantine at a local bare-shell property and that Foxconn has rented residential complexes and commercial hotels for quarantining as well.
According to Taiwan’s United Daily News (UDN), Su Dongxia, the party secretary of the CCP committee at Foxconn, said in an online post: “The company doesn’t have resources to control public opinion, so the negative information you read may be a true fact. But please believe that this company is cleaner than this society.”
She said in her post: “Think about your own city or county. How long has it taken to control the [outbreak] of the pandemic? At what cost? Besides the symbolic bag of vegetables you receive occasionally, what else have you received? Has your government provided you with three meals every day?”
Wang He, a columnist and contributor to the Chinese language edition of The Epoch Times, said that Foxconn was trying to keep its employees on the factory campus.
“As long as Foxconn is able to keep its employees within the campus, who have no contact with the outside society, the outbreak is controlled within the campus,” Wang said, when speaking with The Epoch Times on Oct. 27. “Foxconn wants to maintain the current status to guarantee it [maintains] production.”
Li Jing, Gu Xiaohua, Xia Houchun, and Yi Ru contributed to this report.