STS-134

As a US citizen who is currently effectively banned from traveling to the PRC at all despite having a valid 10 year visa, I expect my government to stand up for me by banning PRC citizens from visiting my country in turn until this stupid policy stops.

Quarantines are medically necessary to stop the spread of disease, if your goal is zero COVID. I'm not debating whether that is realistic or not here. But if that is the goal, there is zero scientific reason for requiring all US citizens to fly directly from the US if flights through other countries are cheaper or for temporarily invalidating all visas issued prior to March 2020. There is no difference in the ability of US citizens vs. PRC citizens to carry viruses, and the quarantines are there to stop this from happening (this is why I was also critical of the previous US administration's travel "ban" that allowed US citizens to return to the US directly from the PRC and then walk off the plane directly into the general population). If you're willing to sit through a quarantine, you should be allowed to visit. If the PRC side isn't going to be reasonable and issue only regulations backed up by science, then I expect my government to engage in a tit for tat with them to make it as painful for them as possible to get this idiocy to stop.

narvik

So, basically, you're just really pissed off that you can't get to China.
Got it.

kb1992

You completely missed STS-134's point.

We are not debating the health policies by countries about COVID, or quarantine requirements etc.

We are talking about unilateral actions by the Chinese government to treat US citizens. PRC has suspended their 10-year visas and basically banned US citizens to visit China.

OTOH, PRC citizens with 10-year US visas are welcome to visit the US, as long as they have vaccination and negative test.

No. He is pissed off that China has taken all sorts of unreasonable measures against US citizens, such as suspending their visas, not allowing them to fly to China via Japan etc. when they DO have the visa and RP. Not to mention this "circuit break policy" against US airlines.

Exactly.

I applaud the DOT for standing up to China and suspending flights by Chinese carriers. Last year when China tried to limit UA/AA/DL to only ONE weekly flight, the DOT responded by canceling flights by Chinese carriers. In two days, China backed off and allowed UA/AA/DL to operate 4 weekly flights.

China's so called 5-1 policy (one country, one airline, one weekly flight) clearly violates China-US aviation treaty. The US government must draw a hardline on the sand.

Banning US citizens entering China from a third country, or when they merely transit from a third country such as SFO-NRT-PVG, or transit from HK, even if they have valid visa and resident permit, is unjustified, arbitrary, and unfair.

I urge the Biden Administration to raise this issue to PRC. If China doesn't back off, the US should ban all Chinese citizens entering the US transiting from another country or region such as Japan, HK, Canada, Europe etc.

Or suspend their 10 -year US visas.

percysmith

The issue is US can't do this for every country who imposes harsher conditions of entry than US itself e.g. New Zealand.

tauphi

Why not? South Korea imposed reciprocal bans on countries like Australia and New Zealand.

kb1992

Maybe US doesn't bother fighting with New Zealand.

The number of Americans want to visit New Zealand can't compare to US citizens whose 10-year visas have been suspended by China.

It's not even close.

travelinmanS

I think each country sets their immigration policy in their own self interest. China has obviously decided that keeping Covid out of China is more important than having businesspeople from other countries visit (not just the USA, this policy applies to every country in the world). The USA thinks it's worth keeping itself open to visitors with visas, as is its right and to be honest the USA doesn't have much worry about foreigners causing more covid as they have a let it rip policy domestically.

People can complain all they want but the policies are based in self interest on both sides.

percysmith

Crankyflier noted the cut in flights and forecast no changes in immediate future https://crankyflier.com/2022/01/18/t...merican-skies/

percysmith

Then again NZ is 1/280th the population of China.

Unless US emulates South Korea, US will lose a principles-based spat on this. Also, is it necessarily constructive to the United States to stop unilateral travel?

gudugan

To be fair a lot of Chinese citizens in the US are already stuck there right now regardless of CCP affiliation.

For example if a Chinese citizen is on a H1B visa in the US they need to return to China or a third (non US) country to do a process called H1B stamping every so often. If they don’t do this process the visa expires, basically banning them from re entering the US. They can stay in the US without major problems.

Now the problem is that the 3+ week quarantine plus the time to actually do the stamping isn’t feasible for a lot of people with US-based jobs. The visa stamping for US consulates in China was also suspended until the travel ban from China to the US was lifted. Going to a third country is risky because if the US consulate there doesn’t stamp it for some reason, the person cannot re enter the US. So they need to fly back to China and get forced into 3+ week quarantine anyway. Also most countries’ consulates prioritize their own citizens over everyone else.

For what it’s worth many Indian citizens in the US also have this problem, apparently there are many chat groups with the purpose of snagging the first US consulate appointment in India even if it is months or years out.

* forgive me, I forget the difference between consulate, embassy, etc

travelinmanS

As an aside, I'm finally starting to hear some rumblings of discontent from my Chinese friends here who were very pro-government Covid policy for the last 2 years. It seems to me that the policies that discourage or outright ban returning to their home town for the Spring Festival for a 2nd or 3rd year in a row is getting many people to re-consider the wisdom of this zero Covid. In addition, now that they have started to lock people into shopping malls or their apartments in tier one cities for a few days just for having breathed the same air as a suspected close contact, there is additional pushback against such measures. Maybe things will slowly start changing if the discontent keeps growing.

STS-134

Why not? It's not like Biden would have to look at what each country is doing himself. He could delegate to one individual for each region of the world the task of looking at what countries are doing to US citizens, and have that individual responsible for reciprocating that policy with a US policy for that country's citizens.

uanj

Yep. I am hearing the same complaints in China about the "do not travel to your hometown this year for CNY" policy. But this is still in its infancy. China is on track to be the last country to achieve a decent level of immunity against covid and reopen.

boat stuck

I would guess that the earliest China would reopen is the end of the year, after Xi gets his third term, assuming Omicron peters out and there isn't a worse variant after.

Ricebucket

People in China grumble about things all the time. Garbage sorting, after school classes, housing prices, whatever. Doesn't amount to anything.

The questions need to be posed in perspective, with the drawbacks in mind.

If you ask these people the choice is between getting locked in or getting sick, they'll pick the former. If the choice is between not going home for CNY or getting sick, they'll pick the former.

I"ve seen the same grumblings about covid policy as you. But I have not seen any widespread sentiment that the policies need to be loosened up. In fact, I've heard plenty of talk that the policies should be *tightened*, because of leakages during the +7 monitoring, or overseas packages, etc.