Tag: lockdown

China to reopen to tourists, resume all visas Wednesday

China will reopen its borders to tourists and resume issuing all visas Wednesday after a three-year halt during the pandemic as it sought to boost its tourism and economy.

China is one of the last major countries to reopen its borders to tourists. The announcement Tuesday came after it declared a “decisive victory” over COVID-19 in February.

All types of visas will resume from Wednesday. Visa-free entry also will resume at destinations such as Hainan island as well as for cruise ships entering Shanghai that had no visa requirement before COVID-19.

Foreigners holding visas issued before March 28, 2020, that are still valid will be allowed to enter China. Visa-free entry will resume for foreigners entering Guangdong in southern China from Hong Kong and Macao. The notice didn’t specify whether vaccination certificates or negative COVID-19 tests would be required, but Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters Tuesday that China had “optimized measures for remote testing of people coming to China from relevant countries,” allowing pre-boarding antigen testing instead of nucleic acid testing.

Travelers with luggage walk at Shanghai Pudong International Airport on March 12, 2023 in Shanghai, China.
VCG via Getty Images
An airliner worker asks traveller to declare their health information after checking in at the international flight check in counter at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, Aug. 24, 2022.
An airliner worker asks traveller to declare their health information after checking in at the international flight check in counter at the Beijing Capital International Airport in Beijing, Aug. 24, 2022.
AP


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“All these have been well implemented, and the epidemic risk is generally controllable,” Wang said at a daily briefing.

The move would “further facilitate the exchange of Chinese and foreign personnel,” according to the notice posted on the websites of numerous Chinese missions and embassies.

China had stuck to a harsh “zero-COVID” strategy involving sudden lockdowns and daily COVID-19 testing to try to stop the virus before abandoning most aspects of the policy in December amid growing opposition.

The relaxation of visa rules follows China’s approval of outbound group tours for Chinese citizens, the results of which have been positive, and the overall improvement in pandemic conditions, Wang said.

“China will continue to make better arrangements for the safe, healthy and orderly movement of Chinese and foreign personnel on the basis of scientific assessments and in light of the situation,” he said. “We also hope that all parties will join China in creating favorable conditions for cross-border exchanges.”

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China easing ‘zero-COVID’ policy after protests

China is finally easing its brutal “zero-COVID” policies after nearly a week of the biggest uprising in decades.

Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, who oversees COVID efforts, signaled the change Wednesday — as numerous regions also started lifting lockdowns, which had forced people into state-run facilities and left whole cities effectively shut down over just one detected case.

Speaking at the National Health Commission, Sun said that it was time to change the approach nearly three years after the contagion was first detected in Wuhan.

“The country is facing a new situation and new tasks in epidemic prevention and control as the pathogenicity of the Omicron virus weakens, more people are vaccinated and experience in containing the virus is accumulated,” Sun said in comments reported in state media.

The easing comes after nearly three years of brutal lockdowns that see whole cities shuttered over even just one case.
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Sun also urged further “optimization” of testing, treatment and quarantine policies, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

Unusually, there was no mention of the country’s cornerstone “zero-COVID” approach, and acknowledgment of the weakening risk was a sharp contrast to signaling over most of the past three years.

Sources told Reuters that official announcements of further nationwide policy changes will be made in the coming days.

“Sun’s speech, in addition to the notable easing of COVID control measures … sends yet another strong signal that the zero-COVID policy will end within the next few months,” analysts at Nomura said in a research note.

“These two events perhaps point to the beginning of the end of zero-COVID.”

Several cities announced the end to measures that include daily testing.
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ANZ Research analysts also told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the remarks “could signal that China is beginning to consider the end of its stringent zero-Covid policy.”

“We believe that Chinese authorities are shifting to a ‘living with Covid’ stance, as reflected in new rules that allow people to do ‘home isolation’ instead of being ferried away to quarantine facilities,” the analysts said.

The changes have already allowed more freedom in several areas, including Guangzhou, where 24 hours earlier protesters clashed with riot cops.
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The change came after protests that started last week quickly turned from anger at the policies to calls for President Xi Jinping to step down.

Since then, there have been 51 protests across 24 cities, according to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) — the most since the 1989 uprising calling for democracy ended in bloodshed in Tiananmen Square.

The historic uprising saw 51 protests in 34 cities.
ASPI

Late Tuesday, protesters clashed with hazmat suit-wearing cops in Guangzhou — one of the areas that then lifted temporary lockdowns within 24 hours of the alarming scenes.

Authorities in at least seven districts of the sprawling manufacturing hub said they were lifting temporary lockdowns, with one allowing the reopening of schools, restaurants and businesses, including cinemas.

Cities including Chongqing and Zhengzhou also announced easings.

The Chinese capital, Beijing, also said it would scale back daily testing requirements — a tedious mainstay of life under zero-Covid.

The elderly, those who work from home, students and teachers in online education and others who do not leave home frequently are now exempt from daily tests, officials said Wednesday.

Beijing residents still require a negative Covid test taken within 48 hours to enter public places such as cafes, restaurants and shopping malls, however.

With a heavy police presence across many cities, there was no indication of protests on Thursday.

The easing of restrictions comes despite China battling its worst COVID-19 outbreak of the past three years, having earlier credited the “zero-COVID” approach for containing the contagion.

The country reported 35,800 domestic covid cases on Thursday, most of them asymptomatic.

With Post wires

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COVID protests erupt in China’s Xinjiang after deadly fire

Rare protests broke out in China’s far western Xinjiang region, with crowds shouting at hazmat-suited guards after a deadly fire triggered anger over their prolonged COVID-19 lockdown as nationwide infections set another record.

Crowds chanted “End the lockdown!”, pumping their fists in the air as they walked down a street, according to videos circulated on Chinese social media on Friday night. Reuters verified the footage was published from the Xinjiang capital Urumqi.

Videos showed people in a plaza singing China’s national anthem with its lyric, “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!” while others shouted that they wanted to be released from lockdowns.

China has put the vast Xinjiang region under some of the country’s longest lockdowns, with many of Urumqi’s 4 million residents barred from leaving their homes for as long as 100 days. The city reported about 100 new cases each of the past two days.

Guards wearing hazmat suits are lined up blocking protestors from walking further down a street in Xinjiang, China.
REUTERS

Xinjiang is home to 10 million Uyghurs. Rights groups and Western governments have long accused Beijing of abuses against the mainly Muslim ethnic minority, including forced labor in internment camps. China strongly rejects such claims.

The Urumqi protests followed a fire in a high-rise building there that killed 10 on Thursday night.

Authorities have said the building’s residents had been able to go downstairs, but videos of emergency crews’ efforts, shared on Chinese social media, led many internet users to surmise that residents could not escape in time because the building was partially locked down.

Urumqi officials abruptly held a news conference in the early hours of Saturday, denying that COVID measures had hampered escape and rescue but saying they would investigate further. One said residents could have escaped faster if they had better understood fire safety.

‘BLAME THE VICTIM’

Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, said such a “blame-the-victim” attitude would make people angrier. “Public trust will just sink lower,” he told Reuters.

Users on China’s Weibo platform described the incident as a tragedy that sprang out of China’s insistence on sticking to its zero-COVID policy and something that could happen to anyone. Some lamented its similarities to the deadly September crash of a COVID quarantine bus.

The protests are in response to the serious lockdowns imposed on the city after a record number of COVID cases.
Video Obtained via REUTERS

“Is there not something we can reflect on to make some changes,” said an essay that went viral on WeChat on Friday, questioning the official narrative on the Urumqi apartment fire.

China defends President Xi Jinping’s signature zero-COVID policy as life-saving and necessary to prevent overwhelming the healthcare system. Officials have vowed to continue with it despite the growing public pushback and its mounting toll on the world’s second-biggest economy.

While the country recently tweaked its measures, shortening quarantines and taking other targeted steps, this coupled with rising cases has caused widespread confusion and uncertainty in big cities, including Beijing, where many residents are locked down at home.

China recorded 34,909 daily local cases, low by global standards but the third record in a row, with infections spreading numerous cities, prompting widespread lockdowns and other curbs on movement and business.

Protestors were heard shouting “End the Lockdown!” while pumping their fists walking through the streets.
Video Obtained via REUTERS

Shanghai, China’s most populous city and financial hub, tightened testing requirements on Saturday for entering cultural venues such as museums and libraries, requiring people to present a negative COVID test taken within 48 hours, down from 72 hours earlier.

Beijing’s Chaoyang Park, popular with runners and picnickers, shut again after having briefly reopened.

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