BEIJING – China says it will resume issuing ordinary visas and passports in another big step away from antivirus controls that has isolated the country for nearly three years, sparking a potential flood of millions of Chinese preparing for the holiday going abroad for the Lunar New Year next month.
Tuesday’s announcement adds to abrupt changes rolling back some of the world’s tightest antivirus controls as President Xi Jinping’s administration seeks to reverse an economic slump. Rules confining millions of people to their homes kept China’s infection rate low but fueled public frustration and stunted economic growth.
The latest decision could draw an influx of high-spending Chinese tourists to low-spend destinations in Asia and Europe for the Lunar New Year, which begins Jan. 22. However, it also poses a risk that they will spread COVID-19 as infections rise in China.
With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, China stopped issuing visas to foreigners and passports to its own population.
The National Immigration Service of China said it will start accepting passport applications for tourists going abroad on Jan. 8. It said it would again issue permits for tourists and businessmen to visit Hong Kong, a Chinese territory with its own border controls.
The agency said it will accept applications for ordinary visas and residence permits. It said the government would “gradually allow foreign visitors back in” and gave no indication of when tourist travel from abroad might be fully allowed.
Health experts and economists expected the ruling Communist Party to maintain travel restrictions to China until at least mid-2023 while it wages a campaign to vaccinate millions of the elderly. Experts say this is necessary to prevent a public health crisis.
During the pandemic, Chinese people with family emergencies or whose work trips were deemed important could obtain passports, but some students and businessmen with overseas travel visas were prevented from leaving the country by border guards. The handful of foreign businessmen and others who were allowed into China were quarantined for up to a week.
Before the pandemic, China was the largest source of foreign tourists for most of its Asian neighbors and a major market for Europe and the United States.
The government has lifted or eased most of China’s quarantine, testing, and other restrictions and, along with the United States, Japan, and other governments, is trying to live with the virus rather than eradicate transmission.
Japan and India responded to the rise in infections in China by requiring virus testing for travelers from the country. US officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to narrate internal discussions, said Washington was considering taking similar steps.
On Monday, the government announced it would scrap quarantine requirements for travelers from abroad, also effective January 8. Foreign companies welcomed the change as an important step in reviving slumping business activity.
Business groups have warned global companies not to shift investment away from China because foreign executives have been blocked from visiting.
The American Chamber of Commerce in China says more than 70% of businesses that responded to a survey this month expect the impact of the latest outbreak wave to last no more than three months, ending in early 2023.
The government has stopped reporting nationwide case numbers, but announcements by some cities suggest at least tens and possibly hundreds of millions of people may have been infected since the surge began in early October.
The outbreaks triggered complaints, Beijing relaxed controls too abruptly. Officials say the wave started before the changes.
China only counts deaths from pneumonia or respiratory failure in its official COVID-19 toll, a health official said last week. That rules out many deaths that other countries would attribute to COVID-19.
Experts assume 1 to 2 million deaths in China by the end of 2023.
Also on Monday, the government downgraded COVID-19 from a Class A infectious disease to a Class B disease and removed it from the list of diseases requiring quarantine. It said authorities would stop tracing close contacts and designating areas with high or low risk of infection.
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AP writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed.
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