China yesterday opened its borders for foreign students for the first time in more than two years, easing restrictions on their entry imposed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Foreign nationals holding a Chinese residence permit for study or an APEC business travel card would be allowed to enter the country, the Chinese embassy in the US said in a statement on WeChat on Tuesday.
Similar statements were made by the Chinese embassies in Japan and India.
Photo: Bloomberg
While the country has been allowing some students to enter on an ad-hoc basis for some time, the move shows that Beijing is attempting to normalize aspects of the economy — while holding fast to its “zero COVID-19” approach.
Anyone entering China still faces one of the most intensive pandemic border regimes globally, with mandatory traveler quarantines still in place.
Allowing international students to return does not mean China has relaxed its strict pandemic control measures or that the government has abandoned its dynamic “zero COVID-19” policy, the state-run Global Times reported.
Lu Hongzhou (盧洪洲), a health commentator and president of the Third People’s Hospital in Shenzhen, said further shortening the quarantine period for inbound travelers in the short term is unlikely, the report added.
China still has the world’s toughest entry requirements, even after easing quarantine rules in June. Arriving travelers need to spend seven days in an isolation facility and then monitor their health at home for a further three days. Flights to the country are also limited.
The country welcomed 492,185 foreign students in 2018, low compared with the more than 1 million enrolled in the 2019-2020 academic year in the US, where international education is a significant industry.
Most of China’s students came from South Korea, followed by Thailand and Pakistan.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS