The US is considering imposing new Covid restrictions on Chinese arrivals after Beijing announced it would reopen its borders next month.
US officials say this is due to a lack of transparency about the virus in China, as cases continue to rise.
Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan – worried about importing Covid cases – have already outlined stricter measures for Chinese travelers, including negative tests.
Beijing has said that the Covid rules should be brought in on a “scientific” basis.
India is also stepping up measures to accommodate Chinese arrivals, but the announcement came before Beijing said it would relax its strict border policy.
The country’s immigration authorities have said that passport applications for Chinese nationals wishing to travel internationally will resume on January 8.
Travel sites have reported an increase in traffic, leading some countries to fear the possible spread of Covid.
“There is growing concern in the international community about the ongoing outbreak of Covid-19 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, a spokesman for China’s foreign minister, later accused Western countries and the media of “hyping” and “distorting China’s Covid policy adjustment”.
He said China believes all countries’ Covid responses should be “science-based and proportionate” and “should not affect normal people-to-people exchanges”.
Mr. Wang called for “joint efforts to ensure safe cross-border travel, maintain the stability of the global industrial supply chain, and promote economic recovery and development.”
Britain and Germany said they were closely monitoring the situation, but were not currently considering new restrictions on Chinese travelers.
A Downing Street spokesman said the number of cases in the UK was still “relatively low”.
Meanwhile, a German health ministry official said there was “no indication that a more dangerous variant [of Covid] has emerged”.
The actual number of daily cases and deaths in China is unknown because authorities have stopped releasing essential data. Reports say hospitals are overflowing and elderly people are dying.
Last week, Beijing reported about 4,000 new Covid infections and a few deaths each day.
Before the relaxation of travel rules, people were strongly discouraged from traveling abroad. Outbound group and package travel sales were 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 that searches for popular destinations had increased tenfold in the past year. Is.
Macau, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand and South Korea were the most popular destinations.
Separately on Wednesday, Hong Kong leader John Lee announced that his city was ending its last Covid rules almost immediately – except for the wearing of face masks, which will remain mandatory.
“The city has reached a relatively high vaccination rate that creates an anti-epidemic barrier,” Mr Lee told a media briefing.
The US still requires international travelers to show proof of a full vaccination against Covid upon entering the country.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website also recommends that anyone traveling to the U.S. get a Covid test and report the result beforehand – but it’s not a legal obligation.
In their statement, unnamed US officials added that they were “following the advice of science and public health experts” and “consulting with partners”.
China’s easing of travel measures – the last part of the country’s controversial zero-covid policy – follows weeks of unrest that have seen people take to the streets in unprecedented protests against President Xi Jinping and his government.
