My comments:
The speaker is being sarcastic. The situation is anything but nice.
State of affairs a formal phrase for, put simply, any situation, the way things are currently. In this case, the state of affairs refers to the situation in the street, where citizens get stopped and have their bags examined.
Nice? It’s anything but, hence the sarcasm.
“I don’t know what things are coming to…” here, the speaker wonders how things have come to be so bad and fears it may get even worse.
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About the author:
Zhang Xin(张欣) has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.