China’s long-awaited reopening of border marks Covid Zero end

Bloomberg

China’s long-awaited border reopening — the final step in its dismantling of Covid Zero — is set to spark a homecoming rush for many diaspora, though a full rebound in travel is likely to take longer.
Starting from Sunday, China no longer requires quarantine for arrivals after authorities ditched the policy that, along with the exorbitant cost of air fares amid severe capacity constraints, was a major deterrent for travellers.
While anyone wanting to enter the country will still need a 48-hour negative Covid test result, the substantial easing in border controls just two weeks before the Lunar New Year holiday marks an end to Beijing’s efforts to keep out the virus.
The immediate impact is a surge of overseas Chinese coming back home, many of whom haven’t seen family for years.
The influx of travellers heading into the country is unlikely to be matched by a surge in demand for overseas trips. The flow of Chinese tourists, previously a $280 billion spending force in global holiday hotspots from Paris to Tokyo, will take months if not years to recover to its pre-pandemic level.
A raft of countries have implemented testing requirements on travellers from China after infections surged, and airlines have been reluctant to immediately make major changes to their flight schedules meaning capacity remains tight and prices high.
“The willingness to travel has started to strongly rebound among Chinese,” said Chen Xin, head of China leisure and transport research at UBS Securities. “But it still takes time to be reflected in the outbound travel routes.”
The reopening of China’s borders marks the end of Covid Zero, a strategy that left the world’s second-biggest economy isolated for three years and weighed heavily on the economy. While the measures managed to keep the virus at bay for much of the pandemic as it killed millions elsewhere, they became increasingly irrelevant as the emergence of more infectious variants made stamping out the coronavirus all but impossible.
Royce flew into Shanghai from Hong Kong after an almost month-long trip to Australia — his first overseas journey in three years. He waited for four days in Hong Kong to avoid quarantine in the mainland. Royce, who operates an import-export business in Shanghai, plans to leave again for Europe next month to meet clients.
“The reopening is extremely important for the economy,” he said. “For those three years it was shut down, the relationships with our partners in different countries just deteriorated.”
It is the last country to abolish border restrictions, more than a year after early Covid Zero proponents such as Singapore, Australia and New Zealand resumed quarantine-free international travel.