Beijing: China has said it will resume issuing normal visas and passports in another major step away from anti-virus controls that isolated the country for nearly three years, leading up to the Lunar New Year holiday next month. There was a potential flood of millions of Chinese people going abroad. Tuesday’s announcement adds to the sudden changes that are rolling back some of the world’s strictest anti-virus controls as President Xi Jinping’s government tries to address an economic downturn. Rules confining millions of people to their homes have kept China’s infection rate low but fueled public despair and crushed economic growth.
The latest decision could send an influx of free-spending Chinese tourists to revenue-starved destinations in Asia and Europe for the Lunar New Year that begins on January 22.
China stopped issuing visas to foreigners and passports to its own people in early 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. China’s National Immigration Administration said it will start taking applications for passports from tourists going abroad from January 8. It said it would resume issuing approvals for tourists and businessmen to travel to Hong Kong, a Chinese territory under its own border control.
The agency said it would take applications for ordinary visas and residence permits. It said the government would “gradually restart” foreign visitors and gave no indication of when full-scale tourist travel from abroad might be allowed. Health experts and economists had expected the ruling Communist Party to ban travel into China until at least mid-2023, while it drives a campaign to vaccinate millions of elderly people. Experts say this is necessary to prevent a public health crisis.
During the pandemic, Chinese with family emergencies or whose work travel was considered important could obtain passports, but some students and businessmen granted visas to travel abroad were blocked by border guards . A handful of foreign businessmen and others who were allowed into China were quarantined for up to a week.
Before the pandemic, China was the biggest source of foreign tourists for most of its Asian neighbors and an important market for Europe and the United States. The government has removed or reduced most quarantines, testing and other restrictions within China, joining the United States, Japan and other governments in trying to live with the virus rather than stamp out transmission.
Japan and India responded to China’s surge in infections by requiring virus tests for travelers to the country. US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity related to internal discussions, said Washington is considering similar steps.
On Monday, the government said it would end quarantine requirements for travelers arriving from abroad, also effective January 8. Foreign companies welcomed the change as a significant step to revive the slumping business activity. Business groups have warned that global companies are turning investment away from China as foreign officials are barred from visiting.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China says more than 70 percent of companies responding to a survey this month expect the effects of the latest wave of the outbreak to last no more than three months, ending in early 2023.
The government has stopped reporting the number of cases nationwide, but announcements by some cities since the start of the surge in early October suggest at least tens of thousands, and possibly millions, of people may be infected.
The outbreaks have prompted complaints that Beijing has relaxed controls too much. Officials say the wave started before the change. A health official said last week that China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 toll. This does not include the many deaths other countries would attribute to COVID-19.
Experts forecast 1 to 2 million deaths in China by the end of 2023. On Monday, the government downgraded COVID-19 from Class A infectious disease to Class B disease and removed it from the list of diseases that require quarantine. It said authorities would stop tracking close contacts and designated areas as high or low risk of infection.