After the Zero Covid policy, the Chinese prepare to travel the world, but not everyone is willing to receive them

Just three weeks ago, the citizens of China they lived under strict quarantines, discard tests at every step and endless restrictions in the name of the politics of covid zerodefended by fall and sword by the regime of Xi Jinping In order to contain as much as possible COVID-19.

But suddenly, the bans began to be lifted in the first week of December. An air of apparent freedom began to be breathed since then in the Asian giant, after unprecedented citizen demonstrations unleashed in November that challenged the Chinese authorities.

The latest proof of this “return to normal” is Beijing’s recent announcement to resume the issuance of visas and passports, which will allow millions of Chinese to travel abroad after three years of rigorous controls taking advantage of the Chinese New Year holidays. which is held at the end of January.

After three years of strict restrictions, Chinese citizens will be allowed to leave their country. However, the world is alert to the explosion of COVID-19 cases in the Asian giant. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang (TINGSHU WANG/)

While the Chinese are welcoming the relaxation of the measures, the rest of the world is preparing cautiously for the possible explosion of tourists, as this could also lead to a explosion of positive cases in recipient countries, where COVID-19 is no longer a problem.

This is how they have understood it in , that they are already preparing to receive a wave of Chinese travelers, which is why their governments have imposed mandatory tests for COVID-19 on all those coming from the Asian giant.

READ ALSO: US to impose mandatory COVID-19 tests on travelers arriving from China

The United States restricted the entry of international passengers after the start of the pandemic, but lifted the latest restrictions in June of this year. Therefore, China is now the only country under restrictions.

“Concern has increased in Japan as it is difficult to understand the true extent of the situation (in China)”said Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida justifying his decision.

The United Kingdom has indicated that it is studying similar measures, while the European Union will have an emergency meeting on Thursday to determine a common position.

In view of this, the Government in Beijing requested “just and scientific measures” to countries that have imposed special regulations for travelers from China. “We hope that all countries make decisions based on science and, in addition, guarantee global economic recovery and a stable supply chain,” Chinese foreign spokesman Wang Wenbin told a press conference.

READ ALSO: China announces general relaxation of strict COVID-19 restrictions

case explosion

Last week, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization needed more information about the severity of the outbreak in China, particularly hospital admissions and intensive care units, “to be able to do a comprehensive risk assessment of the situation on the ground.”

However, as part of the relaxation of the measures, the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the Council of State declared that deaths and serious cases of COVID-19 in the country every week or every month. On Sunday they had already indicated that they would stop publishing the daily report of infections, which has sown doubts about the reliability of the official figures, since Chinese social networks do not stop reporting -despite state control and censorship- how hospitals They are under a lot of pressure due to the explosion of patients.

COVID-19 cases are multiplying with concern in China due to the lifting of restrictions, especially due to the low level of vaccination among the elderly population. (AP Photo/Dake Kang) (Dake Kang/)

According to Deutsche Welle, the latest official report, published on Saturday, reported only 4,128 new infections and no deaths, placing the sum of symptomatic infections since the start of the pandemic at almost 400,000 and deaths at 5,241.

However, the alleged minutes of a meeting of the National Health Commission to which the Bloomberg agency had access indicated that the real number of new daily infections could have reached 37 million and that, in the first days of December, some 248 million people contracted COVID-19.

an abrupt change

“The change has been rapid and drastic, because it has gone from one extreme to another, there has not been a transition as there has been in the rest of the countries of the world”points out to El Comercio the economist Marco Carrasco, expert on China, regarding the lifting of the strict Covid Zero policy.

And it is that, until a few weeks ago, President Xi Jinping himself pointed out that the restrictions were the best way to contain the coronavirus, and that it had been the key so that the Asian giant did not collapse in the face of the pandemic, as had happened with the western world during 2020 and 2021.

However, as the Chinese watched as the rest of the planet took off their masks and learned to live with the virus, the restrictions became increasingly strict for them.

Hospitals in China are under enormous pressure due to the worrying increase in Covid-19 cases. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINESE OUT. (CHINA DAILY/)

This sparked unprecedented citizen protests in the last quarter, as well as open questioning of the government, as the Chinese economy continued to slow and factories could not meet their global commitments.

“One of the reasons for this adjustment in the narrative has been social discontent, which would have been the trigger to rush the decision to lift the Covid Zero policy”adds the expert. However, Carrasco considers that the main reason would have been economic.

“Economic growth has been quite slow in the last. The World Bank estimate for China’s growth at the end of 2022 was around 4.3%, but by the end of this year that expectation was adjusted to 2.7%. If this is compared with previous years, in which China grew at a rate of 8%, or with the reality of other countries in the region, such as India, which grows at 7%, it shows that the Chinese economy is not going through a good moment. And that is due in large part to the quarantines”Explain.

Source: Elcomercio