Hong Kong + Tourist visas • China.Table

Still no tourist visas for foreigners
Hong Kong’s difficult post-pandemic comeback
Wang Huning to draft Taiwan strategy
Dozens of protesters still detained
Deportation reprieve for Hong Kongers in the US
Record cold in northeast and Beijing
EU to promote China expertise
China Perspective: peaceful New Year
Heads: Taiwan’s new Premier Chen Chien-jen

Dear reader,

A huge Covid infection wave is still rolling across China, but an end is slowly in sight and the spring should usher in new optimism. Hong Kong opened a little earlier. The time has now come there to get back on track after the pandemic. But simply returning to normality will hardly be possible, because the special administrative region has taken a severe economic hit. Hong Kong’s economy plummeted by 3.2 percent in 2022, and exports even fell by almost 29 percent year-on-year, the worst value since 1953.

Hong Kong’s international reputation has also been tarnished by the crackdown on the democracy movement. Our Beijing team analyzes how the situation is supposed to pick up again, and what Singapore is doing better.

So China’s Covid entry restrictions are now a thing of the past. But those who were already looking forward to a plate of sizzling jiaozi during their visit to Beijing will probably have to wait until May. Visas are currently only available for first-degree family members and business travelers. Flights are also scarce, which drives up prices. But why does Beijing refuse to let tourists enter the country, while its own citizens are allowed to go back out into the world? It might be a political strategy, writes Fabian Peltsch in his analysis.

Instead of a China trip, we have a China Perspective. The spring festival finally brings families together again and, just like under many Christmas trees in the West, conflicts are bound to happen at such intense family celebrations over hot pots. Find out in our end-of-week column what Chinese parents are arguing about with their grown-up children, and where there is a lot of agreement this year.

Your
Julia Fiedler

Feature

Delayed tourist visas

Only domestic tourists can go sightseeing in China for the time being.

Although the Chinese are once again allowed to leave the country for their vacations, the People’s Republic continues to deny tourist visas to foreigners. The chaos at home is supposed to fall under the radar of global perception.

By
Fabian Peltsch

While Chinese tourists are allowed to travel the world again after the end of zero-Covid, China continues to keep its own borders closed to foreign tourists. “At the moment, it is unfortunately not possible to apply for a tourist visa,” the official China visa office in Berlin explained on inquiry. So far, only business travelers and first-degree relatives from abroad are allowed to enter the People’s Republic. Students, too, can in principle apply for a visa again with corresponding invitations from Chinese host universities. However, as for tourist visas, a date for issuance “cannot be predicted at the moment.”

“We expect that tourists from Europe will be able to travel to China again by May 2023,” says Yang Ciyuan, managing director at the German-Chinese tour operator Sinorama based in Duesseldorf. He sees one reason for the delayed visa issuance in the limited number of flight connections between Europe and China, which now first have to be expanded again. “There are currently only about a tenth of the number of flights offered before the pandemic, so airline ticket prices are also still very high.”

Special treatment for the ‘friends of China’

Wolfgang Arlt, Director of COTRI, the market leader in studies of China’s tourism industry, sees a different rationale at play. “With the entry delay for tourists, China wants to avoid a broader mass of foreigners witnessing the current chaos, for example in the health care system.” For China, tourism is also always a political lever, Arlt says. Last Friday, Beijing announced that group tours of Chinese tourists would be allowed again to 20 countries starting on Feb. 6. What is striking, he adds, is that these mainly include countries that Beijing considers “friends of China,” such as Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Russia and Cuba.

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