The United Kingdom and France will join a growing list of countries implementing tougher COVID-19 measures for passengers arriving from China, authorities say.
Both countries have announced they will require travellers from China to provide a negative COVID-19 test result within 48 hours of departure.
France's government is urging citizens to avoid non-essential travel to China. France is also reintroducing mask requirements on flights from China to France.
Having kept its borders all but shut for three years, imposing a strict regime of lockdowns and relentless testing, Beijing abruptly reversed course toward living with the virus on December 7, and infections have spread rapidly in recent weeks.
The change came after weeks of protests over the country's zero-COVID policy.
Since then, the United States, Italy, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and India have also imposed COVID-19 tests for travellers from China.
Chinese state media on Friday called the imposition of COVID tests on travellers arriving from China "discriminatory".
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia was monitoring the situation in respect of China "as we continue to monitor the impact of COVID here in Australia as well as around the world".
In the UK, the new rules will take effect from January 5, according to a government statement.
In France, the requirements will take effect on Sunday, but officials said it would be a few days before they are fully in place.
French health authorities said they would also carry out random PCR tests at airports on passengers arriving from China to identify potential new coronavirus variants.
France's hospitals have struggled in recent weeks with a large number of patients because of three concurrent outbreaks: the seasonal flu, a wave of bronchitis cases and COVID-19.
Push for a Europe-wide policy
Earlier, Spain's government said it would require all air passengers coming from China to have negative tests or proof of vaccination.
Health Minister Carolina Darias told reporters Spain would push for similar measures at a European level following the surge in cases in China.
Health officials from the 27-member European Union on Thursday promised to continue talks on seeking a common approach but held back from imposing restrictions.
"There exists a shared concern internationally and nationally over the evolution of cases in China and the difficulty to make a correct evaluation of the COVID-19 situation given the scant information that we have available," Ms Darias said.
Ms Darias noted that China would be lifting travel restrictions from January 8 and there was likely to be a major increase in people travelling abroad.
She said the chief concern was the possible emergence of new coronavirus variants and it was important to act fast.
The United States announced new COVID-19 testing requirements on Wednesday for travellers from China, joining some Asian nations that had imposed restrictions.
The moves come after doubts over the transparency of official data from Beijing raised concerns about a wave of infections.
China has rejected criticism of its COVID-19 statistics and said it expected mutations to be more infectious but less severe.
Beijing reported just one new COVID-19 death on Wednesday and one on Thursday.
The official COVID death toll of China, a country of 1.4 billion people, is 5,247 since the pandemic began, compared to 17,027 in Australia and more than 1 million deaths in the United States.
WHO calls for real-time data from China
Foreign governments and the World Health Organization (WHO) have expressed concerns that the real numbers are significantly higher.
China has said it only counts deaths of COVID patients caused by pneumonia and respiratory failure as COVID-related.
The WHO has called on China to regularly share specific and real-time data on its epidemiological situation during a meeting with Chinese officials.
This includes more genetic sequencing data, data on disease impact — including hospitalisations, intensive care unit admissions and deaths — and data on vaccination status, especially in vulnerable and older people.
"WHO called on China to strengthen viral sequencing, clinical management and impact assessment, and expressed willingness to provide support on these areas, as well as on risk communications on vaccination to counter hesitancy," it said.
Chinese scientists have been invited to engage more closely in WHO-led COVID-19 expert networks and to present detailed data on viral sequencing at a meeting of the technical advisory group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution on January 3.
"WHO stressed the importance of monitoring and the timely publication of data to help China and the global community to formulate accurate risk assessments and to inform effective responses," it said in a statement.
ABC/wires
