kb1992

More flight war.....

Biden administration is suspending basically ALL flights to the U.S. by Chinese carriers from now to March 31.

https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-...-idUSL1N2U11UW

Let's see if China retaliates by suspending UA/AA/DL flights.

narvik

Yikes!

I mean, this news seems to be retaliatory action; from what I can tell. China had their reasons for suspension pretty clearly laid out:
"Don't fly a plane full of Covid-19 positive passengers to China, and you can continue to fly (at a reduced rate)."

As harsh and annoying as that strategy may be, I tend to agree here with "Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington," who "said Friday the policy for international passenger flights entering China has �been applied equally to Chinese and foreign airlines in a fair, open and transparent way.": 4 out of the nine flights that were recently suspended WERE Chinese carrier flights.

This appears as if the two opposing parties are of unequal intellect, and the USA being the unreasonable one here, IMO.

kb1992

Well, China can claim any number of positive cases on a given flight, yet there is no verifiable way to see how many positive, or false positive cases. It looks like China is punishing the airlines since after all, it's the Chinese consulates that issue green codes to permit pax to fly. The process looks arbitrary, and not open or transparent, or fair.

From DOT point of view, the U.S. doesn't care China cancels flights by Chinese carriers. It's China's prerogative. But DOT is not happy that China suspends flights by US carriers in some arbitrary matter. You can't even verify their claim of positive cases....

STS-134

US should require all PRC citizens to fly directly to the US from the PRC, suspend all visas issued to PRC citizens, and only recognize US visas issued after March 2020 (and revoke all visas issued after March 2020 that weren't issued for humanitarian reasons). And this should continue until the stupidity stops on the PRC side. Because reciprocity.

boat stuck

I suspect that may not offend the Chinese government much, if at all. They've been trying to minimize the number of international departures in addition to arrivals (e.g. deliberately slowing down passport issuance and renewal), under the assumption that each departure is a future arrival, and each arrival is an infection risk.

kb1992

The Chinese government does care.

There are so many kids/relatives of PRC high ranking officials in the U.S.

They have bank accounts, luxury cars. real estates etc. in the U.S.

Remember, No.1 demand they made when meeting with US Secretary of State?

"Lifting U.S. visa restrictions on CCP members".

STS-134

Cancel the visas of all CCP members and their families. If they're currently in the US, and they leave, they do not come back. Enrolled in school in the US? Too bad. Go complain to your mother or father and make them remove the idiotic restrictions on US citizens or the zero visa policy for CCP members and their families stays in place.

Ricebucket

Your conspiracy theory doesn't make sense. If it's as you say, then the Chinese government would not limit return flights to such a degree. Unless you think the Chinese government wants all CCP officials to leave and never return. What a ridiculous theory.

Your hyperbole doesn't help your argument either. "No. 1 demand"... yeah right.

I think the government is under tremendous pressure to keep Omicron in check given how widespread it is overseas, esp given the coming Olympics. The number of positive cases are taxing the quarantine/isolation system. They're probably happy flights are suspended until 3/31

travelinmanS

Schools in the USA rely on the money Chinese students bring in to fund many things that benefit American students and teachers at those schools.

Zero Covid is 100% political at this point but I don�t think cutting off your nose to spite your face is a good response for the USA.

GloballyServiced

Are you sure this is flights TO the US? The very first sentence of the article says otherwise. I�m going to be slightly concerned if flights out of China are getting banned.

STS-134

Complete bull. Hey why don't we have an identical policy for the US except let's have a group that is majority owned by AA, DL, and UA do the testing, and have the power to suspend CA, MU, and CZ flights based on the results of those tests. What could possibly go wrong here?!? Because look at who owns a majority stake in CA, CZ, and MU.

You know how much money the US has spent fighting COVID-19? What fraction of that money would have to be directed to universities to make up for the "lost" revenue? 1%?

kb1992

Or less than 1%.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/...ised-to-hit-6t

On March 10, 2021, it was reported that US spending on COVID relief hit 6 Trillion USD. The total should be even more now.

https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2021/0...united-states/

There are 372,000 Chinese students in the US. It is estimated that their tuition fees and living expenses contributed US$16 billion in 2019.

Even if all these students return to China, the $16 billion spending is about 0.4% of 6 trillion on COVID relief in the US.

Let's put things in perspective.

gudugan

The visa reciprocity issue is completely separate than the flight cancellations issue.

Visa reciprocity is probably a more effective tool than cancelling flights. China clearly doesn�t care about anyone (even their own citizens) outside the country.

But if overseas Chinese citizens have their visas cancelled and their flights back to the mainland are cancelled, well now they have a problem.

STS-134

Exactly, so their numbers are inconsequential, and their economic contributions to our universities are inconsequential in comparison to the money being thrown around, just like the number of PRC citizens in the PRC who care about overseas travel. So if they happen to become a casualty of the tit for tat, so be it.

Cancel the visas of the family members of CCP officials. Then you put pressure on the CCP to change the policy because the members whose sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, etc., are studying in the US would now either be stuck there or they cannot go back home to visit without getting indefinitely banned from the US (which would make them unable to go back to school). It should be pretty easy to revoke the "in & out privileges" of any CCP official family members by revoking their visas. This also means that any CCP officials whose family members were planning to study in the US starting next fall wouldn't be able to start their studies because they'd be unable to enter the US (unless they are already in the US and do not leave).

The zero COVID policy may be popular with the public, and for people who don't travel overseas, the inconveniences are only theoretical. Even people who do have family members traveling overseas or who do so themselves might be willing to put up with quarantine to try to keep COVID out. But once it starts affecting their ability to see their family members at all and or starts hitting their pocketbooks (i.e. by requiring them to fly directly from the PRC to the US and pay the exorbitant prices of those airfares), that's when it starts to hit home. So the US should start turning those levers and make it as painful as possible for the people who come up with these policies.

Ricebucket

What exactly is your objective here? Have China adopt a policy that you know is unpopular with the public? Bring disease to hundreds of millions of people? Do you think about how it makes you look?