The US is considering imposing new Covid restrictions on Chinese arrivals, after Beijing announced it would reopen its borders next month.
American officials say
this is due to a lack of transparency surrounding the virus in China, as cases
surge.
Japan, Malaysia and
Taiwan - worried at importing Covid cases - have already outlined tighter
measures for Chinese travellers, including negative tests.
Beijing has said Covid
rules should be brought in on a "scientific" basis.
India is also stepping
up measures for Chinese arrivals, but this was announced before Beijing said it
would relax its strict border policy.
Passport applications
for Chinese citizens wishing to travel internationally will resume from 8
January, the country's immigration authorities have said.
Travel sites have
reported a spike in traffic, leaving some countries fearful over the potential
spread of Covid.
"There are
mounting concerns in the international community on the ongoing Covid-19 surges
in China and the lack of transparent data, including viral genomic sequence
data," US officials said in a statement quoted by news agencies.
Wang Wenbin, China's
foreign minister spokesperson, subsequently accused Western countries and media
of "hyping up" and "distorting China's Covid policy
adjustments".
He said China believed
all countries' Covid responses should be "science-based and
proportionate", and should "not affect normal people-to-people
exchange".
Mr Wang called for
"joint efforts to ensure safe cross-border travel, maintain stability of
global industrial supply chains and promote economic recovery and growth".
The true toll of daily
cases and deaths in China is unknown because officials have stopped releasing
this data. Reports say hospitals are overwhelmed and elderly people are dying.
Last week, Beijing
reported about 4,000 new Covid infections each day and few deaths.
Before the relaxation
of travel rules, people were strongly discouraged from travelling abroad. The
sale of outbound group and package travel was banned, according to marketing
solutions company Dragon Trail International.
Within half an hour of
Monday's notice that China's borders would reopen, data from travel site
Trip.com - cited in Chinese media - showed searches for popular destinations
had increased ten-fold on last year.
Macau, Hong Kong,
Japan, Thailand and South Korea were the most popular destinations.
Separately on
Wednesday, Hong Kong's leader John Lee announced that his city was scrapping
the last of its Covid rules almost immediately - apart from the wearing of face
masks, which will remain compulsory.
"The city has
reached a relatively high vaccination rate which builds an anti-epidemic
barrier," Mr Lee told a media briefing.
The US still requires
international travellers to show proof of being fully vaccinated against Covid
on entering the country.
The website for the
Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommends that anyone
travelling to the US gets a Covid test beforehand and has their result to hand
- but this is not a legal obligation.
In their statement, the
unnamed US officials added they were "following the science and advice of
public health experts" and "consulting with partners".
China's loosening of
travel measures - the last part of the country's controversial zero-Covid
policy - follows weeks of unrest which saw people take to the streets in rare
protests against President Xi Jinping and his government.
Source bbc
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