South Korea ends Covid-19 visa restrictions for China travellers

SEOUL – South Korea said on Friday it would begin issuing short-term visas to travellers from China again, ending a Covid-linked restriction that sparked a furious response and tit-for-tat measures from Beijing.

In response, China said later in the day that it would actively consider again issuing visas for South Koreans.

In January, Seoul imposed travel requirements, including visa restrictions and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, on all visitors from China as the world’s most-populous country battled a surge in coronavirus cases.

But South Korea said the rate of passengers from China testing positive on arrival had dropped to 1.4 per cent last week, down from 20 per cent when the curbs were first introduced.

As a result, Seoul will “remove short-term visa restrictions on China and resume issuing them starting from Feb 11”, the country’s disease-control centre said in a statement.

The drop reflects the current situation in China, it said, where there have been “no signs of new coronavirus spread or mutations after the Lunar New Year holidays”.

Days after Seoul stopped issuing the visas in January, Beijing pushed back by suspending the granting of short-term visas for South Koreans, and calling Seoul’s measures “discriminatory”.

Other restrictions, including testing requirements, remain in place.

Travellers from China must provide a negative test before departure and undergo a PCR test within the first day of arrival.

Those testing positive are required to be quarantined for a week.

South Korea had removed pre-flight and on-arrival testing requirements for travellers from all other countries in 2022.

Seoul recently dropped rules requiring people to wear masks in most indoor spaces, ending one of the country’s last major pandemic restrictions as Covid-19 cases dwindle. AFP