China suspends issuing visas in Japan, S.Korea to retaliate for COVID curbs

[groundloop]

Source: Reuters

China suspended issuing short-term visas in South Korea and Japan on Tuesday, after announcing it would retaliate against countries that required negative COVID-19 tests from Chinese travellers.

China has ditched mandatory quarantines for arrivals and allowed travel to resume across its border with Hong Kong since Sunday, removing the last major restrictions under the "zero-COVID" regime which it abruptly began dismantling in early December after historic protests against the curbs.

But the virus is spreading unchecked among its 1.4 billion people and worries over the scale and impact of its outbreak have prompted Japan, South Korea, the United States and other countries to require negative COVID 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".

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/covid-wave-past-its-peak-many-parts-china-state-media-2023-01-10/

[Tetrachloride]

1. So, is China having a tantrum or something else?

[patphil]

2. This coming from a country with hundreds of millions of cases of Covid-19.

But only officially reporting about 503,000.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

Note: scroll down the list to see China is listed as #91 in total cases.

[Sanity Claws]

3. China is doing those countries a favor.

Hey China, please include the U.S. in the list.

[SheltieLover]

4. No kidding!

[BigmanPigman]

7. Today they passed their highest new case numbers so far.....

I check Worldometers regularly and on Jan.,12, 2020 there were 14,100 new cases. Today it is 14,171...a new record. Of course this is not accurate info so probably triple it to get their real numbers.

[IronLionZion]

5. Xi can go full Putin

and make his country a pariah shunned by the world. Good plan

[Martin68]

6. Aww, did we hurt the little fella's feelings?