Chinese state media defended Beijing’s policy against Korea and Japan over Covid-19 measures, saying the move was reasonable. Meanwhile, the media slammed South Korea for insulting travellers from China with its discriminated Covid measure.
China re-opened its border after nearly three years under the world’s stringent regulation of Covid-19 and city-wide protest.
The pandemic overspread across the country of 1.4 billion after a sharp U-turn of the Covid policy, causing governments of many countries showing concern about the scale and impact of the outbreak. The World Health Organization (WHO) said the deaths in China were underreported.
The authority has been reporting five or fewer deaths from Covid per day for the past month. The number of deaths is contrasted to the report of long cues found at funeral homes.
Many countries, such as the United States, Australia and some of the European Union members require at the start of the year that visitors who come from China need to show a pre-departure negative test result of Covid-19.
Also, South Korea and Japan continued to limit flights from China despite the reopening and required Covid-19 negative test results on arrival. Those who have positive results will go to quarantine areas, as tourists will have to pay by themselves.
China also requires negative test results from visitors from all countries as well.
The Chinese embassy in Seoul and Tokyo said that they would suspend issuing short term visas for tourists, saying the requirement for testing was discriminatory.
Park Jin, foreign minister of South Korea, said that the decision was based on scientific evidence and China’s countermeasures were “deeply regrettable.”
To make the situation even worse, China’s immigration also suspended its transit visa exemptions for South Koreans and Japanese.
In Seoul’s airport, visitors from China will be given yellow lanyards with QR codes and walk into the specific lanes coordinated by soldiers. This has sparked outrage in China’s social media, saying that South Korea was insulting them, while some viewed it as a political show.
