The Chinese government considers “unacceptable” the measures adopted by some countries, including Japan, the United States, India, France and Spain, to curb the arrival of travelers arriving from the Asian giant, claiming that there are no scientific arguments to justify the restrictions.
China has recorded in recent weeks an exponential increase in cases of Covid, and this has prompted several countries to require their travelers to test negative for Covid. In addition, the rapid spread of the virus has cast doubt on the reliability of official data on infections and deaths in the country. Scientific models suggest that there are 5,000 deaths per day, despite official data showing 1,800 cases and only seven deaths per week.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently expressed “great concern” about the evolution of Covid in China and demanded “more information”, to which Beijing responded that it has shared its data “in an open, timely and transparent manner”.
China's foreign ministry labelled travel entry curbs imposed by countries including Canada as 'simply unreasonable,' saying they 'lacked scientific basis.' https://t.co/nqIIRMVTae
— CBC News (@CBCNews) January 3, 2023
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning acknowledged that her government believes that pandemic prevention and control measures are being manipulated “to achieve political objectives”. And he has threatened retaliation, just hours before the EU decides how to coordinate control measures in the face of the explosion of covid-19 cases in China.
Mao recalled that the variants of the coronavirus detected in the explosion of contagions in China “are already circulating around the world”, so there is no room for decisions that would be “discriminatory”.
Beijing has threatened to retaliate under the “principle of reciprocity” that governs international relations. Although the Chinese spokeswoman has not gone into details as to what these possible retaliations would be.
In recent days, several European countries, such as Spain, Italy, France and the United Kingdom, have begun to require a negative coronavirus test or a complete vaccination schedule to allow entry of Chinese travelers, thus following countries such as India and the United States.
Could this be any more hypocritical? Start a global pandemic, don't report on it and then allow those exposed to the rest of the world… again. What could go wrong?!
China slams 'excessive' COVID-19 curbs on travellers, threatens to respondhttps://t.co/v2ho3NXEJ5
— Scott McGregor🇨🇦🇦🇺🇬🇧🇳🇿🇺🇸 (@5eyes_Scott) January 3, 2023
In a few hours, the 27 EU countries will meet again in Brussels to decide on the coordination of these possible EU entry requirements.
The United States has cited China’s lack of transparency about infection data and the risk of new variants as a reason for restricting travel. According to the Chinese government, there have only been 22 deaths from the virus in December, data that clearly does not reflect reality.
For the time being, Beijing continues to restrict the entry of visitors and does not grant visas visas to foreign tourists or international students.
-Thailand News (TN)
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