China to issue visas, reopen borders to foreign tourists for first time since 2020

BEIJING – China will once again start issuing a range of visas to foreigners as of Wednesday, the country’s Foreign Ministry said, in a

major easing of travel restrictions

in force since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The move marks the latest step towards reopening China to the outside world, as Beijing gradually

breaks with the strict zero-Covid strategy

that defined its pandemic response until a few months ago.

In addition to new visas being reviewed and approved, those issued before March 28, 2020, that remain valid will once again allow entry to China, said a notice posted on Tuesday on a social media account affiliated with the Foreign Ministry’s consular affairs bureau.

Similar notices appeared on the websites of several overseas Chinese missions, including the country’s embassies in the United States and France.

The updated policy will also allow the resumption of visa-free travel for those arriving in cruise ships at Shanghai, as well as for certain tourist groups from Hong Kong, Macau and countries within the Asean regional grouping, the notice said.

The move would “further facilitate the exchange of Chinese and foreign personnel”, it added.

China received 65.7 million international visitors in 2019, according to data from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, before sealing itself off from the rest of the world during the pandemic.

While most other countries began fully reopening their economies and welcoming international travellers earlier, China began emerging from its strict Covid-19 containment policies only in late 2022, after rare demonstrations against President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-Covid strategy broke out across the country.

Those protests in late November expanded into calls for more political freedoms, with some even calling for Mr Xi to resign, turning into the most widespread opposition to communist rule since the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising.

Abrupt reversal

Early last December, the Chinese authorities effectively ended the regime of mass testing, lockdowns and long quarantines – but the abrupt reversal led to a sudden spike in Covid-19 cases.

Beijing announced in late December that from Jan 8, inbound travellers to the country would no longer need to quarantine, but kept in place visa restrictions on foreigners.

At the time, Beijing said it would “continue to adjust its visa policy for foreigners visiting China in a scientific and dynamic manner in accordance with... the epidemic situation”.

It also then resumed issuing Chinese passports for “tourism” or “overseas visits of friends”.

With

cases surging in China around the start of 2023,

several countries – notably Japan and South Korea – reimposed

restrictions on Chinese visitors,

provoking tit-for-tat moves as Beijing issued its own limitations.

As cases waned in China, both sides subsequently eased those restrictions.

The announcement that China will resume issuing visas to foreigners comes as the country’s rubber-stamp Parliament wrapped up an important session in Beijing, during which

Mr Xi was confirmed for a third term as president

and his close ally

Li Qiang became premier.

Mr Li on Monday admitted that achieving the country’s economic growth target of “around 5 per cent” would be “no easy task”.

China posted a growth of just 3 per cent growth in 2022,

missing its stated target of around 5.5 per cent by a wide margin, as the economy strained under the twin impact of strict Covid-19 policies and a property crisis. AFP