According to WSJ, major construction projects have sprung up in the small Chinese city of Ruili, situated in China's far south near the border with Myanmar. Most of the construction appears focused on reinforcing a border fence equipped with barbed wire, surveillance cameras and sensors. 

That should keep the COVID out...

Moving east, a 12-foot-high fence has been erected abruptly over the last year along China's border with Vietnam. This wall has a very specific purpose: It stops Vietnamese locals from crossing the border into Chinese villages to harvest corn or sell medicinal herbs. It also gives the area the look of a prison, one local hotelier in Vietnam said. 

Chinese citizens have taken to calling the new border fortifications "the southern Great Wall" while discussing it on Weibo and on other social media apps. But the authorities have been trying to push another name: "the anti-COVID Great Wall".

Across the 3,000-mile-long border, the wall is causing serious disruptions to commerce and trade that are angering some of China's neighbors (not that there's anything they can do about it).

In an August letter to villagers in border areas of Yunnan province, Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged locals to "safeguard the sacred land" and unite with state workers to create an "impenetrable" border.

Elsewhere, party officials in Guangxi, another area bordering Vietnam, urged cadres to "race against time, go all out, resolutely win the battle against the pandemic and defend the 'south gate'" of China.

Somehow, WSJ's reporters managed to get their hands on records confirming that China has built or reinforced fencing across 285 miles of the southern border over the last two years. And given the nature of freedom of information laws in China, that picture is likely incomplete.