HONG KONG—Tens of thousands of travelers began to fly in and out of mainland China on Sunday as Beijing removed almost all of its border restrictions, throwing the country open again after three years of pandemic measures that effectively sealed off the world’s most populous nation from the rest of the world.
The Chinese tourists heading abroad bring hope for relief to economies that had come to rely on steady flows of Chinese travelers—and concern to some governments about the risk of imported infections from China’s largest Covid-19 outbreak yet.
China’s decision to restore a freer flow of movement across its borders, announced in late December, ends one of the most tangible symbols of China’s Covid-era isolation—particularly for the many middle- and upper-class Chinese citizens who had grown accustomed to a more peripatetic lifestyle.
The reopening also offers an opportunity for the business community, cut off from its operations in a fast-growing market, to visit again. China’s Commerce Ministry said Friday that it had received strong signs of support from foreign executives who were eager to visit China, check in on their operations and consider new investments.
Hong Kong-based business executive Sherry Shi and her son were among thousands of overseas Chinese who boarded a mainland China-bound airplane on Sunday.
“I’m so excited,” said Ms. Shi, a native of Beijing, who said she was already busy scheduling reunions with friends and family, some over meals of Beijing roast duck that her son had dearly missed in the past three years. Because of Covid-era quarantine rules, they had missed her father’s funeral and hadn’t seen many relatives and friends for years.
Sunday’s travelers weren’t the first group of passengers to skip quarantine upon arrival in China. Since Beijing first announced the rule change last month, travelers landing in several Chinese cities have launched protests against mandatory hotel quarantines, in many cases succeeding in convincing authorities to let them skip five days of confinement.
Travel in and out of China plunged during the pandemic. The number of border crossings totaled 22 million in the three months ended Sept. 30, according to Chinese immigration authorities. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, that number was 670 million, more than half of them mainland Chinese travelers, according to…
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