THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Saturday/Sunday, February 22 - 23, 2020 |A
WORLD NEWS
rectly because it was under
lockdown, we flew to the city
of Nanyang, 250 miles to the
northwest. We made it by
train to Xiangyang, the third-
most-populous city in Hubei
province. We checked into a
hotel and planned to push on
in a hired car later.
Soon after our arrival, how-
ever, hotel staff and local au-
thorities started showing up
at our doors, including Wang
Jianjun, deputy director of the
Foreign Affairs Office of Xi-
angyang’s government.
“Given the circumstances,
let’s not shake hands,” he said,holding his hands up. Saying
the situation in Hubei was
dire, he pleaded with us to
leave while we still could. “I
would tell my own daughters
to do the same,” he said.
The authorities gave us an
out: A train would be able to
take us to Chengdu, where we
could fly back to Beijing.
Still determined to do our
reporting, we declined the of-
fer. “Then you need to under-
stand that you will not be able
to leave the hotel at all,” one
of the officials snapped.
Mr. Wang suggested we ap-
ply for a spot on an evacuationflight out of Wuhan being of-
fered by the U.S. State Depart-
ment for American citizens and
their families, to be followed by
a 14-day quarantine in the U.S.
When Shan asked whether
he could instead help us get
back to Beijing via Henan, a
province north of Wuhan city,
he laughed and said those bor-
ders were closed.
Then Mr. Wang warned us
that after two weeks, we could
leave our rooms but not the ho-
tel. That decided it for us: a
two-week quarantine in the U.S.
over an indefinite one in China.
After a mad dash to catch
the last of the evacuation
flights, we arrived on U.S. soil.
I landed at Marine Corps Air
Station Miramar in San Diego,
while Shan wound up at Travis
Air Force Base near Sacra-
mento.
Our colleague Jim’s quaran-
tine at his apartment in China
ended on Feb. 6, two weeks af-
ter it began. Ours in the U.S.
ended on Thursday, after a to-
tal 25 days in quarantine.Men in hazmat suits, above,
coming to collect trash from
James T. Areddy’s apartment.
Left, Stephanie, front, and
Shan’s last night out at the
hotel in Xiangyang, Hubei,JAMES T. AREDDY/THE WALL STREET JOURNALThe U.S. and the Afghan Tal-
iban are preparing to sign a
historic peace deal next week
meant to end America’s longest
war, if the two sides succeed in
reducing violence in Afghani-
stan over the next seven days.
After months of on-again,
off-again talks, the U.S. and
Taliban agreed to curtail most
attacks across Afghanistan in
a pact that took effect after
midnight on Saturday in the
country, starting a weeklong
clock that is supposed to end
with a permanent peace deal.
If the effort succeeds and
the two sides sign the deal
next weekend, the Afghan gov-
ernment plans to launch its
own direct talks with the Tali-
ban to forge a difficult agree-
ment to bring the militants
into the government and end
fighting. More than 110,000 Af-
ghans have been killed since
2001, when the Taliban govern-
ment was toppled by the U.S.
The tenuous U.S.-Taliban
agreement faces serious hur-
dles, and there are widespread
fears that any momentum could
be reversed by uncompromis-
ing militants looking to derail
the plans by triggering deadly
ByCourtney McBride
in Muscat, Oman,Dion
Nissenbaumin Beirut
andEhsanullah Amiri
in KabulRelatives mourned a victim killed during a protest earlier this month.
GHULAMULLAH HABIBI/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCKThe only time Jim ventured
outside, at 2 a.m. to toss out
the garbage, he hunched under
his hoodie to avoid lobby sur-
veillance cameras. The next
morning, visitors in space
suits with disinfectant spray
bottles knocked on his door
requesting his trash.
Of course, all three of us
were fortunate compared with
the tens of thousands of peo-
ple who have the virus, and the
millions more who face restric-
tions that are hurting their
ability to earn wages, obtain
necessities such as medicines,
and visit loved ones. Human-
rights groups have decried
China’s coronavirus clamp-
down, arguing it unnecessarily
impinges on people’s rights
and slows the free movement
of drugs and supplies without
necessarily stopping the virus.
From our vantage point, it
is hard to tell what the final
impact of China’s massive
quarantine policy on the virus
will be. But it is difficult to
imagine any other nation be-
ing able to control the move-
ments of so many people. And
it is clear the controls are gen-
erating fear and paranoia.
For Shan and me, our quar-
antine began in late January.
Unable to enter Wuhan di-nition and other technologies to
monitor people’s movements.
Checkpoints have been set
up to keep people from driving
freely in and out of towns or
leaving their apartment com-
plexes. Neighborhood-watch
captains are keeping tabs on
residents everywhere. Some
drugstores have been required
to report sales of fever and
cough medicine to track down
potential patients.
Our Shanghai-based re-
porter, Jim Areddy, also expe-
rienced the reach of the gov-
ernment’s response to the
epidemic. Within a day of re-
turning home from a reporting
trip to Wuhan in late January,
his wife got a call from a
neighborhood policeman, and
he got a text message from the
local government. Both indi-
cated his trip was a problem.
ThetextmessagetoldJim,
a U.S. citizen, to promptly re-
port his presence and ended
with a slogan: “Let’s work to-
gether to safeguard the health
of citizens and the safety of
the city!” It didn’t say how
they knew where he had been.
He was told to remain in his
apartment for 14 days as a
precaution to prevent the
spread of the virus. Each day,
the chief of his building’s
Communist Party neighbor-
hood committee—the front
line to enforcing policies such
as fire regulations and trash
separation—stopped by or
sent an underling. Other visi-
tors came by in goggles and
hazmat suits. A woman in sur-
gical garb and gloves, who
identified herself as Dr. Zhong,
instructed him to put his sig-
nature on a form promising to
remain housebound.
When Jim struggled to re-
call his flight number from
Wuhan, he says a man with
her who didn’t identify himself
provided it.Arriving at a hotel on Jan.
26 in a city about 200 miles
from Wuhan, our plan was set.
My colleague Shan Li and I
would leave in the early-morn-
ing darkness the following
day, traveling by car into the
city to report from the center
of a deadly viral epidemic.
Almost immediately, we
were visited by hotel staff and
local officials, who brought a
warning: Go back to Beijing or
face lockdown.
They never told us how
they knew we were there,
though foreign visitors like us
have to show passports when
checking into Chinese hotels.
We are both U.S. citizens who
are credentialed to work as
journalists in China.
For days afterward, author-
ities blocked us from leaving
the hotel and checked on our
health constantly. A young
man monitored us from a
room across the hall, even fol-
lowing Shan down to the lobby
at 3 a.m. one night in yellow-
and-black pajamas.
The coronavirus epidemic,
which has infected more than
75,000 world-wide and killed
more than 2,200 people in
China alone, is an unprece-
dented test of Chinese leader
Xi Jinping’s government and
the vast surveillance state
China has built during the past
five years under his rule.
Never before has a nation
tried to put so many people—
more than 60 million—under
full-time quarantine. Hundreds
of millions more are being dis-
couraged from leaving their
homes.
Others are being tracked by
China’s leviathan surveillance
system, which uses facial recog-
ByStephanie Yang
withShan Li
andJames T. AreddyReporting
Under China’s
Quarantine
attacks during the next week.
In September, President
Trump abruptly called off talks
with the Taliban and canceled a
planned peace summit at Camp
David outside Washington after
the militants claimed responsi-
bility for an attack that killed a
U.S. soldier in Afghanistan.
But all sides involved in the
conflict hailed the agreement
as a monumental step that of-
fers Afghanistan its best
chance to end the war.
“Our brave security and de-
fense forces will only act in
defense of themselves and thehonorable people of Afghani-
stan,” President Ashraf Ghani
said Friday night.
The Taliban issued a public
statement directing all its
fighters to keep out of “enemy
territory” and shoot only in
self-defense.
The new deal stops short of
a full cease-fire. The U.S., which
has about 13,000 troops in Af-
ghanistan, said it would con-
tinue to carry out operations
against small numbers of Is-lamic State and al Qaeda fight-
ers operating in the country.
Complicating the arrange-
ment, conflicts in many parts
of Afghanistan are fueled by
local disputes, tribal and eth-
nic rivalries, and the factions
involved may be only loosely
affiliated with the Taliban
group. U.S. military officials
are expected to monitor the
security environment, making
use of intelligence resources
to determine responsibility for
any acts of violence that occur
during the period.
If violence in Afghanistan
significantly subsides, the U.S.
and Taliban negotiators will
meet in Doha, Qatar, to sign the
pact meant to end the war Pres-
ident George W. Bush started to
topple the Taliban government,
which provided sanctuary to al
Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
as he planned the Sept. 11, 2001,
attacks. It remains unclear how
the U.S. would measure success
that paves the way for a long-
term deal.
The deal would allow for a
broader “political settlement
to end the war in Afghanistan,
reduce United States and Allied
Forces presence, and ensure
that no terrorist group ever
uses Afghan soil to threaten
the United States or our allies,”
Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said in a statement.
A senior State Department
official said Ambassador Zalmay
Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy
for Afghanistan, would sign the
accord on behalf of the U.S.
At the peak of the war in
2010, the U.S. had 100,
troops in Afghanistan. The U.S.
is preparing to keep nearly
9,000 troops in the country to
carry out counterterrorism op-
erations. A key Taliban demand
is for all U.S. troops to leave
Afghanistan, which has compli-
cated negotiations for years.
The stakes involved in the
process are immense, as the
potential for the country to
slide back into violence re-
mains high.
Taliban spokesman Zabiul-
lah Mujahid said both parties
now will create a “suitable se-
curity situation” ahead of sign-
ing a final accord on Feb. 29.U.S., Taliban Reach Deal
Ahead of Permanent Pact
American military
officials are expected
to monitor the
security situation.STEPHANIE YANG/THE WALL STREET JOURNALEsteemed artist. Stylish beauty. Parisian
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beauty at the famed Longchamp Racecourse
in Paris. His model embodies the concept of
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bearing an unmistakable grace who are
his trademark subject. Vibrant in hue and
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embody thejoie de vivreof post-WWI Paris.
Signed(lowerright).Board:16”hx13”w;
Frame: 23^3 / 4 ”h x 20^1 / 2 ”w.#31-La Belle Parisienne
Jean-Gabriel Domergue
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