Japan and South Korea defended public health restrictions on travellers from China on Wednesday, a day after China stopped issuing new visas in both countries in apparent retaliation.
Chinese embassies stopped issuing new visas for South Koreans and Japanese on Tuesday. It wasn’t clear whether China would expand the visa suspensions to other countries that have imposed stricter virus testing on passengers from China following its COVID-19 surge. South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin said Wednesday he finds it “significantly regrettable” that China stopped issuing short-term visas to South Koreans and called for China to align its pandemic steps with “scientific and objective facts.”
According to South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency, about 17 per cent of the 2,550 short-term travellers from China from January 2 to Tuesday have tested positive. South Korea has stopped issuing most short-term visas at its consulates in China through the end of January while also requiring all passengers from China, Hong Kong and Macau to submit proofs of negative tests taken within 48 hours of their arrival in addition to COVID-19 tests at the airport. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno criticized China for “one-sidedly” restricting visa issuances to Japanese nationals “because of a reason that is not related to COVID-19 measures.”
Tokyo protested and demanded China scrap the measures and that Japan will “respond appropriately while closely watching China’s infection situation and how information disclosures are handled by the Chinese side,” Matsuno said.
Matsuno said Japan had to take temporary measures to avoid a rapid inflow of infections into Japan because of China’s spreading infections and lack of transparency about the situation.
He said that Japanese border measures are purely aimed at preventing infections and have aimed to limit effects on international trave