China lifts the Quarantine Rules to International Travel in the Face of a Surge in COVID-19-related Cases

China announced that it will end its decades-long centralized system. quarantine rules for overseas passengers—a major step toward easing restrictions on border travel amid the country’s mass reopening.

International visitors with a negative P.C.R. will be able to cross the Chinese border between Macao and the mainland from January 8, 2023. test result within 48 hours of departure, China’s top health authority National Health Commission (NHC) announced Late Monday The current requirement for new Chinese arrivals is to have extensive health screening prior to entering the eight-day inbound quarantine.

The commission stated that while passengers boarding from China will need to wear masks, they are exempted from QR code health checks upon landing. This means that they don’t have to submit COVID test results prior to their journey.

Long-standing “zero-COVID” Since March 2020, most borders have been closed to all but students and workers from abroad. Meanwhile, relentless lockdowns under Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s bid to keep China free of the virus are causing widespread damage to the country’s economy as well as global supply chains and trade. Official data from China’s tourism ministry show China saw a total of 27.47 million inbound tourists—an 81 percent drop from the previous year before the pandemic.

Chinese citizens’ chances to travel overseas will also be “resumed in an orderly manner,” According to the NHC.

Chinese media reported a more than 8-fold increase in international travel ticket searches on Chinese travel platform Tongcheng Travel, following its announcement. The top three most searched destinations were South Korea, Japan, and Thailand. Many of those who did the searches were based within China, such as Beijing or Shanghai.

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