Hong Kong
Act Daily News
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Chinese authorities have stopped issuing short-term visas to South Korean residents within the nation’s first retaliation towards Covid entry restrictions on arrivals from China.
“Visas for business, tourism, medical treatment, transit and general private affairs will be suspended for South Korean citizens effective today,” the Chinese Embassy in Seoul mentioned in a press release. The measures shall be “adjusted” if South Korea cancels its “discriminatory” entry restrictions on China, the embassy added.
Beijing has decried latest restrictions and screenings positioned on vacationers from China, after a variety of international locations moved to require testing from vacationers from China, citing considerations over the nation’s latest surge of infections – and restricted information concerning the outbreak – since Beijing dropped its stringent Covid controls final month.
South Korea went a step additional on January 2 by suspending short-term visa functions from its consulates in China till the top of the month. It additionally requires folks touring from China to take a PCR check inside 24 hours of arrival and stay in isolation till receiving unfavorable outcomes.
From January 5, it has additionally requested folks touring from China to current a unfavorable PCR check taken inside 48 hours of departure or a fast antigen check taken inside 24 hours.
China’s transfer follows a Monday cellphone name between Foreign Minister Qin Gang and his South Korean counterpart Park Jin, throughout which Qin “expressed concern” over the restrictions and urged Seoul to take an “objective and scientific” strategy, in line with a readout from the Chinese facet.
Both international locations made official feedback on the state of affairs throughout common briefings Tuesday, with the South Korean facet saying their Covid-related restrictions on vacationers from China had been “based on scientific and objective grounds.”
South Korea’s Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Lim Soo-suk mentioned the federal government had been “transparently sharing relevant information with the international community, and has continued to communicate with the Chinese side.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin echoed China’s earlier language, saying the nation “resolutely objects” to “discriminatory” entry restrictions imposed on Chinese vacationers and “will take proportionate countermeasures.”
“A few countries, with disregard towards scientific facts and actual epidemic situation in China, continued on imposing discriminatory entry restrictions … We call on these countries to come up with appropriate pandemic control measures based on facts and science, not engage in political manipulation, discriminatory measures, and impact normal personnel exchange and cooperation,” he mentioned.
The transfer comes simply days after China considerably eased strict border controls that had required all entrants to the nation, whether or not Chinese nationals or eligible overseas nationals, to bear a number of Covid-19 exams and obligatory resort quarantine.
In latest weeks, greater than a dozen international locations together with the United States, France, Canada, Japan and Australia have mandated testing on vacationers from China, citing considerations concerning the degree of information reporting from China and the potential for brand new variants of the virus to emerge there. No such variants have but been reported.