Abstract
To control COVID-19 pandemic, China adopts the measures of blocking people's clustering and controlling mobility. This study analyzes the state capabilities and governance involved in implementing the aforementioned measures. The data are news and comments from WeChat public accounts from January to June, 2020. This study argues that the state's capability lies in its control of the infrastructure and system for formal mobility and in placing different frictions on different types of mobility. From city lockdown to ＂closed-off management＂ of communities, China's responses to COVID-19 pandemic adopt a lot of spatial technique. Out of the need of labor migration for economic development, local governments and technology giants in China cooperated and developed a digital technology health code. The development and implementation of health code shows that the state capacities are embedded upon the fragmented digital landscape under the power struggles among local governments, different departments, and technology enterprises. All these result in an unequal distribution of mobility in China's COVID-19 pandemic.