China has suspended issuing short-term visas in South Korea and Japan after announcing it would retaliate against countries that required negative COVID-19 tests from Chinese travellers.
China ditched mandatory quarantines for arrivals and allowed travel to resume across its border with Hong Kong on Sunday, removing the last major restrictions under the "zero-COVID" regime after Beijing abruptly reversed its "zero COVID" policy last month following historic protests.
But the virus is spreading unchecked among its 1.4 billion people, and worries over the scale and impact of the outbreak have prompted countries including Australia, Japan, South Korea, the United States to require negative COVID-19 tests from travellers from China.
Although China imposes similar testing requirements for all arrivals, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters on Tuesday entry curbs for Chinese travellers were "discriminatory", and China would take "reciprocal measures".
In the first retaliatory move, the Chinese embassy in South Korea suspended issuing short-term visas for South Korean visitors.
It would adjust the policy subject to the lifting of South Korea's "discriminatory entry restrictions" against China, the embassy said.
A South Korean Foreign Ministry statement said that "our government's step to strengthen anti-virus measures on passengers arriving from China is based on scientific and objective evidence … and we have communicated with the Chinese side in advance".
The Chinese embassy in Japan later announced a similar move, saying that the mission and its consulates had suspended the issuing of visas from Tuesday.
The embassy statement did not say when they would resume.
China's latest move came soon after Japan toughened COVID-19 rules for travellers coming directly from China, requiring a negative result of a PCR test taken less than 72 hours before departure, as well as a negative test on arrival in Japan.
Japan lodged a protest to China over its suspending the issuance of visas for Japanese citizens and asked that it overturn the action, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said Japan would respond appropriately while watching China's outbreak and how much information the government shares about it.
"It is extremely regrettable that China has restricted visa issuances," he said.
From last week, travellers from China, Hong Kong and Macau have to take a pre-departure COVID-19 test and provide a negative result before heading to Australia, meaning the retaliatory measure could soon be imposed for those in Australia hoping to visit China.
China says it's 'open and transparent' with COVID-19 data
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 World Health Organization and are inconsistent with funeral providers reporting surging demand.
Some governments have raised concerns about Beijing's data transparency as international experts predict at least 1 million deaths in China this year.
Washington has also raised concerns about future potential mutations of the virus.
China dismisses criticism over its data as politically motivated attempts to smear its "success" in handling the pandemic, and said any future mutations are likely to be more infectious but less harmful.
"Since the outbreak, China has had an open and transparent attitude," the Foreign Ministry's Mr Wang said.
But as infections surge across China's vast rural hinterland, many, including elderly victims, are simply not bothering to get tested.
State media downplays severity of outbreak
An article in Health Times, a publication managed by People's Daily, the ruling Communist Party's official newspaper, quoted several officials as saying infections have been declining in the capital Beijing and several Chinese provinces.
Last week, at the Chuiyangliu hospital in the east of Beijing, signs of the COVID-19 outbreak stretching public health facilities in the world’s most populous nation were on full display.
Beds ran out by midmorning at the packed hospital, even as ambulances brought more people in.
Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.
Officials in the southern technology powerhouse Shenzhen announced on Tuesday that the city had also passed its peak.
Kan Quan, director of the Office of the Henan Provincial Epidemic Prevention and Control, said nearly 90 per cent of people in the central province of 100 million people had been infected as of Janurary 6.
In the eastern province of Jiangsu, the peak was reached on December 22, while in neighbouring Zheijiang province "the first wave of infections has passed smoothly," officials said.
Although daily flights in and out of China are still at a tenth of pre-COVID levels, businesses across Asia, from South Korean and Japanese shop owners to Thai tour bus operators and K-pop groups celebrated the prospect of more Chinese tourists.
In a further sign of opening, Beijing's Daxing International Airport will resume taking international flights for the first time in nearly three years from January 17, along with Beijing Capital International Airport.
Chinese shoppers spent $US250 billion ($362.7 billion) a year overseas before COVID-19.
Pfizer also in firing line
The border rules were not the only COVID-19 conflict brewing in China.
State media lashed out at Pfizer over the price for 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 said on Monday the company was in discussions with Chinese authorities about a price for Paxlovid, but not over licensing a generic version in China.
China's 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.
Reuters/AP/ABC
