Us and other countries across the world are currently considering implementing new covid restrictions for chinese arrivals due to a lack of transparency surrounding the virus in china. japan, malaysia and taiwan have all introduced tighter measures, such as negative test results, for chinese travellers. beijing has stated that travel regulations should be based on a “scientific” basis. in india, additional regulations for chinese arrivals were enforced before beijing announced its plans to relax border restrictions.
8 january, china’s immigration authorities allowed chinese citizens to apply for international passports, which has led to an increase in travel site traffic and raised concerns about the potential spread of covid. this has caused mounting concerns in the international community regarding the recent surges of covid-19 cases in china and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence data. china’s foreign minister spokesperson, wang wenbin, accused western countries and media of “hyping up” and “distorting china’s covid policy adjustments”.
Uk and germany have stated that they are monitoring the situation closely, but are not currently considering new restrictions for chinese travellers. in order to prevent the spread of the virus, the sale of outbound group and package travel was banned and people were strongly discouraged from travelling abroad. china’s loosening of travel measures follows weeks of unrest which saw people protesting against president xi jinping and his government. hong kong leader john lee announced that the city was scrapping the last of its covid rules apart from the wearing of face masks, which will remain compulsory. the us still requires international travellers to show proof of being fully vaccinated in order to enter the country.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-64107553?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
