China: China has announced that the country will resume issuing short-term visas to travellers from South Korea after Seoul scrapped pandemic-related travel restrictions that angered Beijing.

“China will begin processing short-term visas for South Koreans for business, transit, and other private affairs,” the Chinese embassy in Seoul shared in a post on its official WeChat account.

The world’s most populous country stopped issuing short-term visas to South Koreans in January 2023, after Seoul slapped COVID restrictions on travellers from China. The restriction was imposed amid concerns that Beijing’s sudden dismantling of its controversial “zero-COVID” policy could spawn new coronavirus variants.

The South Korean government has begun issuing visas amid reports China’s wave of COVID infections has peaked, after previously indicating it would restrict visas until the end of February 2023.

The Foreign Ministry of China at the time called South Korea’s move a “step in the right direction” to allow people-to-people exchanges between the two countries.

Toward the end of 2022, several countries, including Japan, South Korea, and the United States, introduced travel restrictions on arrivals from China after Beijing scrapped lockdowns, mass testing, and quarantine following rare mass protests.

Beijing condemned the new rules as discriminatory and lacking in scientific basis. Some health experts also questioned the need for the restrictions given the spread of the virus elsewhere and the wide availability of vaccines.

South Korea is one of China’s top sources of tourism, with more than 4 million South Korean visitors to the country in 2018. Furthermore, Chinese nationals account for more than one-third of the 17.5 million arrivals in South Korea in 2019.

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