China still unclear on permission to return stranded Indians

“Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has been providing visa facilities to foreign nationals traveling to China for essential economic, trade, technical and emergency humanitarian purposes,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told the media here on Wednesday. Used to be.”

“Going forward, we will actively promote a new system for healthy, safe and orderly personnel exchange based on effective prevention of imported cases, with relevant measures at appropriate points in the light of the evolving COVID-19 situation. Will adjust”, he said.

He was responding to a question that the US and Australian Chambers of Commerce have reported that local government authorities in Beijing and some other Chinese cities are now issuing PU letters to dependent family members of eligible foreign workers and whether it Benefit will be given to India. Too.

PU is an invitation letter issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China to apply for a visa to enter China.

Apart from more than 23,000 Indian students studying in Chinese colleges, mostly medicine, hundreds of businessmen, employees and their families have been stranded in India since last year.

The restrictions have resulted in many people either losing jobs, losing businesses or tearing families apart.

In September, Indian Ambassador to China Vikram Misri also criticized China’s prolonged stringent travel restrictions, saying that “we are in a position to address the many problems currently being faced by Indian students, businessmen, marine crew and exporters”. Disappointed to see unscientific approach.”

In the same month, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hua Chunying said that the Chinese government had no choice but to take “a lot of prevention and control measures”, which were applied to Chinese nationals stranded abroad.

“I want to emphasize that China’s inbound prevention and control measures apply to all incoming passengers, including its own citizens,” she said.