Think Covid’s Messed Up Your Travel Plans?Try Getting Into China
For
the past year, people trying to go to China have run into some of the
world’s most formidable barriers to entry. To stop the coronavirus,
China bans tourists and short-term business travelers outright, and it
sets tough standards for all other foreigners, even those who have lived
there for years.
The restrictions
have hampered the operations of many companies, separated families and
upended the lives of thousands of international students. Global
companies say their ranks of foreign workers in the country have
dwindled sharply.
At a time of strained tensions with the United States and other countries, China is keeping itself safe from the pandemic.
At the same time, it risks further isolating its economy, the world’s
second-largest, at a moment when its major trade partners are emerging
from their own self-imposed slumps.
“When it comes to measures that draconian, you are going to
disenfranchise people who are big China fans and are not allowed to
return to the country they have made their home,” said Alexander Style,
the British owner of a Shanghai-based company that makes electric
vehicle parts for export, who has been forced to relocate with his
family to New Jersey.
Other countries have their own travel
restrictions, though few are as tight. The United States, for example,
bans foreigners traveling directly from China unless they are green card
holders or certain immediate family members of American citizens. It
also bans foreigners leaving from Europe, as well as Brazil and other
countries.
Australia lets in just a few hundred of its citizens and permanent residents each day, while Japan has barred the entry of foreign workers and students since late December.
In
China, officials regard travel limits as crucial to their success in
containing the virus. Since the outbreak started, China has reported more than 101,000 Covid cases.
Although questions have been raised about the accuracy of the numbers,
they are far lower than in the United States, where 29.8 million people
have tested positive for the virus. China’s strategy reflects its
strengths as well as its weaknesses.
China was the only major economy to grow
last year. It knows businesses will find a way to keep their Chinese
operations running, with or without expatriates, and it is betting that
they will come back when the pandemic eases. At the same time, China’s
restrictions highlight the inadequacies of its vaccine rollout, which
has been slow compared to those of the United States, Britain and other
countries.
Foreign executives think China is likely to be one of the last countries in the world to fully reopen, perhaps as late as next year, after the Beijing Winter Olympics in February. China’s restrictions will mean significant delays in building large factories or winning sales orders, according to business groups.
In recent days, Chinese embassies in at least 50 countries have said
that foreigners wanting to enter China could avoid some visa paperwork
by taking a Chinese-made Covid-19 vaccine. The government has presented
the rule as an easing of its visa application procedures. But it does
not help travelers from countries like the United States where Chinese
vaccines are not available.
“It’s kind of a Catch-22,” said Jeff
Jolly, who has been stuck in the United States since July after leaving
Shanghai, where he runs a language training center and academic
consultancy.
In
a statement, China’s foreign ministry said: “We believe this is a
meaningful exploration of facilitating international travel once mass
vaccination has been achieved.”
As
deadlier and more infectious virus variants appeared in other countries
in recent months, China introduced onerous new requirements.
At
the end of last year, it essentially stopped allowing anyone to bring a
spouse or child into the country. Since January, travelers arriving in
Beijing from countries with severe outbreaks have had to endure weekly anal swab tests
while in quarantine, with fecal material tested for traces of the
virus. The measure prompted indignant complaints from the United States
and Japan.
“It’s kind of a Catch-22,” said Jeff
Jolly, who has been stuck in the United States since July after leaving
Shanghai, where he runs a language training center and academic
consultancy.
In
a statement, China’s foreign ministry said: “We believe this is a
meaningful exploration of facilitating international travel once mass
vaccination has been achieved.”
As
deadlier and more infectious virus variants appeared in other countries
in recent months, China introduced onerous new requirements.
At
the end of last year, it essentially stopped allowing anyone to bring a
spouse or child into the country. Since January, travelers arriving in
Beijing from countries with severe outbreaks have had to endure weekly anal swab tests
while in quarantine, with fecal material tested for traces of the
virus. The measure prompted indignant complaints from the United States
and Japan.
Glyn Wise, who had been teaching English
literature at an international school in Shanghai, was able to get a
work visa from the Chinese Embassy in London in October. But the agency
that helped prepare his application told him later that Chinese border
officials would not acknowledge the visa.
“A
lot of the times they would change the rules about who they were
accepting,” Mr. Wise said. He said he was looking for job opportunities
outside China.
But many others are still hopeful, and some have organized campaigns on social media to draw attention to their plight.
Nearly
13,000 international students being kept out of China signed an online
petition urging Beijing to allow them to return, while others launched a
Twitter campaign called #TakeUsBackToChina.
Amanuel Tafese, an Ethiopian student enrolled at
a university in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu, said he had
tried taking his lessons online since being shut out of the country
early last year. But he had to rent space to do so, because there is no
electricity or internet access at his family’s home, 280 miles from the
capital, Addis Ababa.
Mr. Tafese says he cannot find a job, because he has no degree, and is relying on his father’s small income to support himself.
“All this made me depressed,” Mr. Tafese wrote in an email.
China’s tough restrictions, including its
recent ban on dependents, have also exacted an emotional toll on some
families who have been forced to live apart for months, in some cases
more than a year.
In February of last year, Jessie Astbury Allen took her two young daughters to England to wait out the outbreak as it swept across China, hoping they would reunite with her husband in Shanghai by Easter.
It was a plan she would come to regret.
“I
knew in my gut we were doing the wrong thing, but it was too late,” she
said, weeping, as she described how she felt upon landing at London’s
Heathrow Airport.
Like many parents coping with a lockdown,
Ms. Astbury Allen has had to juggle the demands of her daughters’
online classes with her job as the China director of a marketing and
strategy company that helps foreign brands sell in China.
In
late September, the government announced that people with expired
residence permits could return to China after applying for a visa. Ms.
Astbury Allen rushed to apply for one in October. But by the time she
reached a visa center, the rules had already changed.
China announced on Nov. 4 that it would temporarily suspend
the entry of foreigners from Britain, even if they had visas or valid
residence permits. It described the move as a “temporary response” as
cases of Covid-19 surged in Britain.
The
situation has left Ms. Astbury Allen feeling overwhelmed. She worries
most about the trauma this separation is inflicting on her daughters.
Her 12-year-old, Livia, became depressed
and hid under her blanket, refusing to come out of her room for three
days. When Mae, her usually cheerful 7-year-old, saw her mother crying
last month, she became very upset and emotional, Ms. Astbury Allen said.
“I said, ‘Do you miss your dad, honey?” said Ms. Astbury Allen. “And she said, ‘Yes,’ and I said: ‘It’s OK. We miss him, too.’”
Source:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/21/business/international/china-coronavirus-borders.html, By Sui-Lee Wee and Keith Bradsher,Elsie Chen , Coral Yang and Claire Fu contributed research.
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