The United States has begun considering imposing new Covid restrictions on Chinese arrivals, following an announcement from Beijing that it would reopen its borders next month.
American officials made this known in a statement, claiming this development is as a result of a lack of transparency surrounding the virus in China, as cases surge.
India is also stepping up measures on Chinese arrivals, even though theirs was announced before Beijing said it would relax its strict border policy.
Other Asian countries, such as: Japan, Malaysia and Taiwan have already outlined tighter measures for Chinese travellers, including negative test results.
The statement read partially, “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.”
Meanwhile, China’s foreign minister spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, has accused Western countries and media of “hyping up” and “distorting China’s Covid policy adjustments”.
He insisted that China believed all countries’ Covid responses should be “science-based and proportionate”, and should “not affect normal people-to-people exchange”.
Wang, therefore, 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 currently unknown as officials have stopped releasing this data. However, hospitals are reportedly overwhelmed and elderly people are dying.
BBC News reported that, last week, Beijing recorded about 4,000 new Covid infections each day with few deaths.
On the other hand, 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 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.
China’s loosening of travel measures – the last part of the country’s controversial zero-Covid policy – follows weeks of unrest, during which time people took to the streets in rare protests against President Xi Jinping and his government.
