China was one of the last countries to reopen for tourism after the Covid pandemic. While other countries began allowing foreign visitors within a few months of the availability of vaccines, China, with its “zero Covid” policy, allowed no visitors at all until December 2022. Even then, they waited until March of 2023 until the country began reissuing tourist visas and its borders were considered to be fully reopened.
However since it reopened to tourism, China has still had difficulties getting tourists to visit. In the first half of 2023, China recorded 8.4 million entries and exits by tourists. That’s a far cry from the 977 million they recorded in all of 2019, the last full year before the pandemic.
Realizing its tourism problem, China began visa-free visits of 15 days or less for citizens of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Malaysia.
Piggybacking on that pilot program, effective January 1st, the Chinese government has eased visa requirements for U.S. tourists.
In order to “further facilitate people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States,” American tourists will no longer need to submit the following when applying for their visa:
- round-trip air tickets
- proof of hotel reservations
- itineraries or invitations to China
It’s not visa-free travel, but not having to show proof of intentions to travel to China before having permission to travel there by the Chinese government might help tourism from the U.S. a bit.
That being said, the U.S. State Department currently recommends that U.S. residents reconsider travel to China. The Level 3 (Orange) advisory warns, in part:
Reconsider travel due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions.
Summary: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including issuing exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries, without fair and transparent process under the law.
The Department of State has determined the risk of wrongful detention of U.S. nationals by the PRC government exists in the PRC.
U.S. citizens traveling or residing in the PRC may be detained without access to U.S. consular services or information about their alleged crime. U.S. citizens in the PRC may be subjected to interrogations and detention without fair and transparent treatment under the law.
Foreigners in the PRC, including but not limited to businesspeople, former foreign-government personnel, academics, relatives of PRC citizens involved in legal disputes, and journalists have been interrogated and detained by PRC officials for alleged violations of PRC national security laws. The PRC has also interrogated, detained, and expelled U.S. citizens living and working in the PRC.
PRC authorities appear to have broad discretion to deem a wide range of documents, data, statistics, or materials as state secrets and to detain and prosecute foreign nationals for alleged espionage. There is increased official scrutiny of U.S. and third-country firms, such as professional service and due diligence companies, operating in the PRC. Security personnel could detain U.S. citizens or subject them to prosecution for conducting research or accessing publicly available material inside the PRC.
Security personnel could detain and/or deport U.S. citizens for sending private electronic messages critical of the PRC, Hong Kong SAR, or Macau SAR governments.
In addition, the PRC government has used restrictions on travel or departure from the PRC, or so-called exit bans, to:
- compel individuals to participate in PRC government investigations;
- pressure family members of the restricted individual to return to the PRC from abroad;
- resolve civil disputes in favor of PRC citizens; and
- gain bargaining leverage over foreign governments.
U.S. citizens might only become aware of an exit ban when they attempt to depart the PRC, and there may be no available legal process to contest an exit ban in a court of law. Relatives, including minor children, of those under investigation in the PRC may become subject to an exit ban.
So yeah…even if getting a visa is a little easier, I don’t know how many U.S. citizens would be thrilled with the idea of going to China when there’s a chance they could not let you out.
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