As the world welcomes the advent of 2023, China faces "containment" from many countries around the world.

After tweaking its COVID-19 policies, the Omicron variant spread like wildfire in China. Although the official has not announced the number of infections, judging from the situation in major cities, some estimates point out that the number of cases in China may exceed 50%. At the end of 2022, the Chinese government announced that it will continue to relax the COVID-19 measures, ending entry quarantine on January 8, 2023, and resuming outbound travel for Chinese citizens.

Now, it is the turn of other countries to start to feel anxious about the outbreaks in China, with many of them worried that passengers from China may become the carriers of the virus. Although some countries welcome China's relaxation of control measures, which means that Chinese tourists who have been absent from the international tourism market for three years will return to the overseas consumer market, the actual situation is far more complicated than this. With the spread of the novel coronavirus, one country after another announced the strengthening of control measures for the entry of Chinese tourists.

In Asia, South Korea toughens some quarantine measures on passengers from China. On December 30, 2022, South Korean authorities announced that from early January 2023, Chinese tourists will be tested for COVID-19 before entering Korea and after arriving in South Korea until the end of February. At the same time, South Korea will temporarily restrict the issuance of short-term visas to the country until the end of January, as well as suspending its plan to increase flights from China. On the Japanese side, starting from December 30, 2022, individuals entering Japan from China must be tested for COVID-19. If the test result is positive, they need to take 7-day quarantine measures. The Indian government announced at the end of December 2022 that international passengers transiting from Mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, and South Korea must conduct the RT-PCR test when they travel to India. isolation.

In Europe, the Italian authorities announced that starting from December 24, 2022, Milan's Malpensa Airport will conduct PCR tests for all passengers, regardless of nationality, from China, and this policy will be temporarily implemented until January 30, 2023, before deciding if such a measure will continue. The British government announced on December 30, 2022, that from January 5, 2023, passengers entering China must submit a negative virus test result within two days before departure. France, which stated earlier that there is no need for new regulations, has also changed its stance, requiring air passengers from China to provide a negative PCR test result within 48 hours before departure, and conducting random tests on passengers from China at the airport. On December 30, 2022, Spain announced restrictive measures for Chinese tourists, including mandatory testing, or checking vaccination and negative test results.

The United States and Canada have also successively announced that starting from January 5, 2023, passengers entering from China must provide negative COVID-19 test results. On January 1, 2023, the Australian Ministry of Health issued a statement stating that starting from January 5, all inbound passengers from Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau must provide proof of negative test results within 48 hours before boarding.

Meanwhile, the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on December 31, 2022, that from January 3, 2023, all personnel from China, regardless of nationality, will not be allowed to enter the country to avoid a new wave of COVID-19 outbreaks.

On the other hand, some countries believe that there is no need to impose special restrictions on Chinese tourists. A spokesman for the German Federal Ministry of Health stated on December 28, 2022, that Germany is paying close attention to the situation in China, but there are currently no signs that the current outbreak in China is developing a dangerous mutation that requires corresponding travel restrictions. The Portuguese government too expressed there was no need for new travel restrictions. Austria, for its part, highlighted the economic benefits of Chinese tourists traveling to Europe. In addition, the Southeast Asian countries Philippines and Indonesia successively stated on December 29 that there is currently no need to impose stricter travel restrictions on passengers from China. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) pointed out on December 29 that Europe has a high level of protection against the novel coronavirus, and the health system in the European continent can cope with the current infection load, which means the decision to screen and restrict tourists from China is unreasonable.

However, the world's concerns about the COVID-19 situation in China are far from being dispelled. Sweden, which will hold the EU's rotating presidency from January 1, 2023, said that EU countries will hold a meeting next week to discuss joint responses to individuals entering from China.

Judging from the above signs, many countries in the world have imposed some kind of travel restrictions on China, forming a de facto "containment". In this regard, the spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed dissatisfaction, saying, "normal personnel exchanges, exchanges, and cooperation should not be affected", and maintaining that the "safe exchange of people from various countries" is crucial for "the recovery of the world economy".

It is quite ironic that China is now facing restrictions from multiple countries and regions across the globe due to COVID-19. In the past three years, China adopted the most stringent measures in the world against the pandemic. Within the country, it implemented strict lockdowns to stop the spread of the virus, along with frequent PCR testing. The country also imposed stern restrictions on the entry of international passengers, including sharply reducing flights, adopting "circuit breaker" measures, and quarantine after entry. In the past two years, many foreign investors and government officials have criticized such strict control measures, believing that this has significantly affected foreign businesses in China and hindered the world's exchanges with the country.

When the Omicron variant began to replace the Delta variant as the predominantly prevalent strain of the novel coronavirus, the global pandemic situation changed. Due to the low severity and fatality rate of the Omicron variant, many countries have survived the most difficult period of the outbreak and began to gradually return to normal with the help of effective vaccines, medications, and effective control measures that have been relaxed gradually. Many countries, from those in the West to Asian countries like Singapore and Vietnam, which were previously hit hard by the Delta variant, have stabilized during the Omicron waves and survived the pandemic relatively smoothly.

Compared with other countries, China is in a completely different situation. In the past three years, due to China's overall implementation of strict measures, during the Delta period, it did achieve initial victory through effective and strict lockdowns. However, during the Omicron period, the world has been divided into two parts based on the measures taken against COVID-19. China has been in the part that is quite different from many other countries. The Chinese people, who were protected by strict measures before and were less infected, are in a different pandemic cycle than most people in the world. When it was difficult to strictly guard against the highly contagious Omicron virus, China began to enter the stage of large-scale infection. In the winter of the end of 2022 and early 2023, many regions in China are still under the impact of the outbreaks.

Many countries have now imposed restrictions on passengers from China, first of all, this is out of public health concerns, but it must be admitted that some Western countries almost instinctively look at China with biased perspectives. The United States and Europe, which have been in certain disputes with China in multiple aspects in the past few years, almost unanimously chose to take restrictive measures against Chinese tourists. This combination of public health concerns and geopolitical overtones has contributed to the new "containment" of China by Western countries.

All these show how important communication and coordination among countries around the world are when faced with a public health event sweeping the globe like the COVID-19 pandemic. If countries only close their doors out of national interests without considering scientific reasons or treating citizens of all countries equally, this would affect normal personnel exchanges and international cooperation. In the end, such acts will only affect the common people and businesses worldwide.

Final analysis conclusion:

China is facing the "containment" of many countries caused by the outbreaks of COVID-19 in the country, right at the beginning of 2023. Such a situation is similar to the huge challenge facing the Chinese economy in 2022. Once it passes the peak of the outbreaks, we believe that China will return to normal in the not-too-distant future. Hence, the restrictions imposed by many countries on China are likely to be short-term measures. However, in an era of intensified geopolitical competition, mutual suspicion and lack of trust among countries will create new rifts between countries.