As China reopens its borders, mixed feelings at home and abroad

HONG KONG — In the past three years, Zhou Wanhui, a resident of Hong Kong, has visited her parents in China only three times. Although they live only two hours away by train, Covid restrictions made it so difficult to cross the Hong Kong border into mainland China that one of Ms. Zhou’s trips involved a three-hour flight to Shanghai and nearly a month of quarantine in two cities.

Families like Ms. Zhou’s – which are kept apart for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations – are finally preparing for less stressful reunions.

On Sunday, China fully opened its borders for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, making it easier for foreigners to get visas for business, reunions and study, and to process Chinese passport applications and Hong Kong permits, just as the travel period for Lunar New Year, usually the busiest season, begins. Hundreds of people lined up at the Hong Kong airport to check in flights to cities in the south such as Xiamen and Chongqing and in the north such as Beijing and Tianjin, but it was quieter in the arrivals hall. Many of the city’s border controls were reopened; empty transport halls filled with groups of people and shuttered storefronts were open again.

Ms. Zhou, 22, a university student, texted her parents that she planned to be home for the Lunar New Year on January 22. “Wow, this is such happy news! The border is finally open,” her parents wrote back with a row of thumbs up emoji.

But the unease, from both travelers and countries that have waited a long time to welcome back Chinese tourists with big wallets, has dampened the festive mood.

As China quickly lifted Covid restrictions, a savage outbreak has swept across the country in recent weeks, wreaking havoc in hospitals and straining healthcare workers. Beijing’s decision to open its borders, announced less than two weeks ago, has left many surprised, confused and cautious.

“It was too abrupt,” says Jenny Zhao, 34, referring to China’s rapid reversal of its Covid policies. Ms. Zhao, who is a marketing manager, has been living in Singapore for the past year. She found herself stuck abroad last year with near-impossible barriers to getting back home to China and decided to stay after landing a job with an international company.

With infections spreading in China, Ms. Zhao isn’t sure she’s ready to go back.

“All my relatives, including my grandmother, who is 88 years old, have contracted Covid,” Ms. Zhao said. Her mother told her that everyone on their 3,000-unit property in the southern city of Chongqing appears to be sick with the virus.

Instead of going there during the Lunar New Year, Mrs. Zhao has decided to wait until summer to see her family. By then, she hopes, the current surge in Covid numbers will have eased, restrictions on Chinese travelers abroad will have eased, and airfares will be cheaper. Ms. Zhao said she plans to take her parents on a trip to Thailand afterward.

Nations around the world are eager to welcome the return of Chinese tourists like Ms. Zhao and her parents. Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists spent $250 billion a year abroad. Their abrupt disappearance in early 2020, when China suspended tour groups and tour packages, plunged many tour guides and tour operators into bankruptcy. The impact was felt acutely in places like Thailand, Japan and South Korea.

But some of those same countries are also vacillating between attracting Chinese tourists and health experts’ concerns about the size of China’s Covid outbreak, the potential for new coronavirus mutations and the potential strain that sick tourists could place on health care.

Global health experts and the World Health Organization have warned that the outbreak in China and the country’s opacity in reporting cases have made it difficult to assess the seriousness of the situation.

In recent days, dozens of countries around the world have started requiring Covid testing and health monitoring of travelers arriving from China. That has led to rebukes from Beijing, which has argued the steps have no scientific basis.

The European Union said on Wednesday it was “strongly encouraging” its 27 members to introduce testing and masking requirements as Chinese travelers begin to return to popular European cities.

Even Hong Kong, where the government imposed many of the same border restrictions as China until a few months ago, has taken a cautious approach in opening its border with the mainland, capping visitor numbers at 60,000 people per day. The rule also applies to visitors from Hong Kong traveling north. Anyone entering either side of the border must show a negative PCR test.

On Jeju Island, a South Korean destination once favored by Chinese tourists, many businesses are hesitant. The government has halted all direct flights from China to the island and diverted visitors to the country’s main airport, Seoul, where travelers must undergo a PCR test on arrival and quarantine if found to be ill.

“We are focused on alternative markets for now, such as Japan and Southeast Asia,” said Kim Chang-hyo, an official with the Jeju Island Tourism Association. South Korea has also stopped processing short-term visas for Chinese citizens, except those for diplomatic or business visits.

Thailand’s response is friendlier. A minister came up with the idea of ​​offering booster vaccines to Chinese tourists. Another urged Thais not to”bullyChinese visitors based on unfounded fears about Covid.

But the Thai government is also taking steps to prevent its hospital system from being swamped by a sudden outbreak now that China’s borders are open. All visitors to the country must receive two injections of a Covid vaccine and the government has recommended wearing a mask in public. Visitors must also have medical insurance to cover Covid treatment if they become ill.

Thailand expects about 300,000 Chinese visitors in the first three months of 2023, said Yuthasak Supasorn, governor of the country’s Tourism Authority. “There are only 15 flights a week compared to pre-Covid where there are about 400 flights a week,” he said. Before the pandemic, nearly a million Chinese tourists visited every month.

At the Maetaeng Elephant Park in Chiang Mai’s northern Thai province, staff said they were delighted to see Chinese tourists return. For now, however, they’re preoccupied with South Koreans, who have largely replaced the Chinese as their largest clientele.

“It’s all still a wait and see,” said Thipsuda Poungmalee, a sales and marketing manager for the park.

In Osaka, Japan, where Chinese tourists have sometimes made headlines for what the Japanese call “bakugai”—or explosive buying—optimism has also been dampened. “Of course it has been much quieter without tourists from China, the city has been less vibrant,” said Makoto Tsuda, an official of the tourism promotion office of Osaka prefecture. Before the pandemic, nearly half of all foreign visitors to the city came from China, he said.

Japan requires visitors from China to take a negative PCR test before arrival and to take another test upon arrival. Mr Tsuda said he expects more visitors from China, but maybe not immediately.

“I think there is an additional hurdle compared to visitors from other countries, so it may not be a sudden burst of incoming tourists from China, but more gradually,” Mr Tsuda said.

Among those at Hong Kong International Airport on Sunday was Yan Yan, a 55-year-old clothing wholesaler who had traveled from South Carolina with her husband.

They patiently waited to check their luggage onto a Xiamen Airlines flight to Tianjin as the queues in a crowded departure hall slowly grew closer.

She visited her parents in Tianjin every year. But this will be her first time home since the pandemic began in early 2020. Restricted flights and abrupt cancellations, not to mention heavy quarantines and PCR testing, had deterred her until now. One of her friends who had flown back to China had spent the entire journey between quarantine facilities.

“Now that restrictions have been eased, it’s much better,” she said, adding that she was relieved to see her relatives after recovering from difficult Covid bouts several weeks ago.

“It’s going to be a great New Year to spend with family.”

Reporting contributed by Hikari Hida, Muktita Suhartono and John Jon.