China has decided to suspend the issuance of short-term visas for nationals of South Korea and Japan in response to the COVID-19 travel curbs.
Japan and South Korea have both introduced stricter COVID entry rules for travellers reaching their territory from China, and they currently require everyone to undergo a mandatory Coronavirus test before their departure.
Such a decision taken by Japan and South Korea has been seen as discriminatory by the Chinese government, and for this reason, the latter decided to suspend the issuance of visas to travellers from Japan and South Korea, VisaGuide.World reports.
Not long after Japan and South Korea introduced stricter Coronavirus entry rules for travellers from China, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, Wang Wenbin, said that his country would take reciprocal measures.
As its first retaliatory move, the Chinese embassy in South Korea announced the suspension of the issuance of short-term visas and said that the country would only change its policy when South Korea lifts its discriminatory entry restrictions.
The embassy of China in Japan made the same move too, saying that it would no longer issue new visas for Japanese nationals and it did not give an official statement on when this measure will get dropped.
The decision of China to suspend the issuance of visas for nationals of Japan and South Korea was not welcomed by the authorities of these two countries.
Japan has already lodged a petition with China over the visa suspension and the Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said earlier this week that it is disappointing that China has decided to take such a measure instead of tackling COVID, which has been spreading rapidly within the county.
Matsuno further said that the Japanese authorities would respond to the current situation appropriately, suggesting that the country will keep in place its mandatory testing requirement for arrivals from China.
Following the increase of infection cases in China, the two countries mentioned above – Japan and South Korea – are not the only ones that decided to impose COVID entry restrictions for Chinese nationals. Latvia, Greece, Germany, and the Netherlands are just some of the European Union that also now require that all travellers from China undergo a pre-departure Coronavirus test.
Data provided by the World Health Organization show that China has reported a total of 265,333 new Coronavirus infection cases in the last seven days, bringing the total number so far to 10,776,430. During the same period, the country has also reported 804 new deaths.
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