China yesterday began retaliating against South Korea and Japan, two of the countries which have imposed COVID-19 curbs on travelers from China, the last major economy to reopen its borders after three years of isolation.
China’s embassy in Seoul said it has suspended the issuance of short-term visas for visitors from South Korea. Japan’s Kyodo News reported that Beijing has imposed similar measures against Japan.
China on Sunday reopened its borders, removing the last major restriction that was part of a “zero COVID” regime that it abruptly began dismantling early last month after historic protests against the policy.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The frequent lockdowns, relentless testing and various movement restrictions since early 2020 have brought the world’s second-largest economy to one of its slowest growth rates in nearly half a century.
With the virus let loose, China has stopped publishing daily infection tallies. It has been reporting five or fewer deaths a day since the policy U-turn, figures that have been disputed by the WHO and are inconsistent with funeral homes reporting a surge in demand for their services.
The US, South Korea, France and others introduced testing requirements in response to China’s COVID-19 outbreak.
Some governments have raised concerns about Beijing’s transparency over the scale and impact of its outbreak, as international experts predict at least 1 million deaths in China this year. Washington has also raised concerns about potential mutations of the virus.
Although Beijing also demands negative COVID-19 test results from anyone landing in China, officials last week threatened retaliation against countries mandating tests for people coming from China.
China’s embassy in Seoul wrote on its official WeChat account that it would adjust its latest visa rules subject to the lifting of South Korea’s “discriminatory entry restrictions” against China.
China has also told travel agencies that it has stopped issuing new visas in Japan, Kyodo News said, quoting multiple travel industry sources.
China has dismissed criticism over its data as politically motivated attempts to smear its “success” in handling the COVID-19 pandemic and said that any mutations are likely to be more infectious, but less harmful.
State media yesterday continued to downplay the severity of the outbreak.
An article in the Health Times, a publication managed by the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s official newspaper, quoted several officials as saying infections have been declining in the capital Beijing and several Chinese provinces.
Kan Quancheng (闞全程), director of the Office of the Henan Provincial Epidemic Prevention and Control, said that the infection rate in the central province of 100 million people was nearly 90 percent as of Friday last week.
Beijing Acting Mayor Yin Yong (應勇) said the capital was also past its peak.
The retaliation against South Korea and Japan was not the only conflict brewing in China.
State media has also taken a swipe at Pfizer Inc over the price of its COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid.
“It is not a secret that US capital forces have already accumulated quite a fortune from the world via selling vaccines and drugs, and the US government has been coordinating all along,” nationalist tabloid Global Times said in an editorial.
Pfizer’s chief executive Albert Bourla on Monday said the company was in discussions with Chinese authorities about a price for Paxlovid, but not over licensing a generic version in China.
The abrupt change of course in COVID-19 policies has caught many hospitals ill-equipped, while smaller cities were left scrambling to secure basic anti-fever drugs.
Youcare Pharmaceutical Group chairman Yu Weishi (于偉仕) said that his firm boosted output of its anti-fever drugs five-fold to 1 million boxes per day in the past month.
Wang Lili (王麗麗), a manager at another pharmaceutical firm, CR Double-Crane, said that intravenous drips were their most in-demand product.
The company has since Thursday done away with weekends to meet demand.
“We are running 24/7,” Wang said.
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