China reopens to foreign students after over 2 years
Foreigners with Apec business travel card can also enter country from yesterday
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BEIJING • China will allow foreign students to enter the country for the first time in more than two years, easing restrictions imposed after the outbreak of Covid-19.
Foreign nationals holding a valid Chinese residence permit for study or an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) business travel card will be allowed to enter China from yesterday, the nation's embassy in the United States said in a statement posted on WeChat late on Tuesday.
Similar statements were made by China's embassies in Japan and India.
Allowing international students to return does not mean China has relaxed its strict virus control measures, or that the government has abandoned its dynamic zero-Covid-19 policy, the state-run Global Times reported.
Dr Lu Hongzhou, head of the Third People's Hospital of Shenzhen, said further shortening of the quarantine period for inbound travellers is unlikely in the short term, the report added.
China still has the world's toughest entry requirements, even after easing rules in June.
Arriving travellers need to spend seven days in a quarantine facility and then monitor their health at home for a further three days. Flights to the country are also limited.
China welcomed 492,185 foreign students in 2018, which is low compared with the more than one million enrolled in the 2019-2020 school year in the US, where international education is a significant industry.
Most of China's students came from South Korea, followed by Thailand and Pakistan.
China's latest Covid-19 wave - which triggered a raft of lockdowns and restrictions across several provinces - appears to be easing as flare-ups in tourist hot spots seeded by summer vacation travel ebb.
The nation reported 1,641 cases for Tuesday, down from a peak of more than 3,400 about a week ago.
China managed to wipe out cases for much of 2020 and last year, before being challenged by more contagious variants.
Still, President Xi Jinping's administration remains committed to the zero-Covid-19 policy, with Beijing unwilling to endure the scale of death seen in other nations.
Officially, China has seen just over 5,200 fatalities since the pandemic started, versus more than one million in the US, a central tenet in official rhetoric about the superiority of the country's approach.
BLOOMBERG
