Tokyo to impose Covid-19 tests on passengers arriving from China

Tourists walk through Tokyo-Haneda International Airport on the day Japan's borders reopen, October 11, 2022. © Eugene Hoshiko / AP

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Japan will require all travelers from mainland China to present a negative test for Covid-19, due to the rapid spread of the virus on its territory.

Chinese visitors who test positive will be required to remain confined for seven days.

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With our correspondent in Tokyo

,

Frédéric Charles

These new measures, which will come into effect in Japan on December 30 at midnight, are taken in response to the end of China's "zero Covid" strategy.

The latter must reopen its borders on January 8, 2023.

Visitors from China will be the only ones, upon arrival in Japan, automatically required to take a Covid test.

The number of flights to Japan from mainland China will also be limited.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida justifies these measures by the difficulty of establishing precisely

the evolution of the pandemic

in China.

This is causing concern in Japan 

," he said.

At the lowest in the opinion polls, Fumio Kishida also knows that in a country at odds with China, fearing any increase in infections carried by foreign visitors, this kind of measure is not likely to aggravate its unpopularity.

Need for Chinese tourists

After two and a half years of hermetic closure, Japan also reopened its borders to tourists

in October 2022

, upon presentation of proof of vaccination or a negative screening test carried out before departure. 

This constraint of

PCR tests

 imposed on visitors from China will delay the mass return of Chinese tourists to the archipelago, crucial to the Japanese tourism sector.

In 2019, one in three foreign tourists entering Japan came from China.

Indeed, Japan needs the spending of Chinese tourists to sustain its domestic consumption.

This Wednesday, December 28, the Hong Kong authorities have also asked Japan to cancel the “

hasty 

” restrictions on direct flights between the city and the Japanese country. 

In the meantime, overseas Chinese in Japan are buying all the fever and headache medicine they can find from pharmacies to send to their families, who are

facing a shortage in China

.

► To listen also: International Report - In Japan, the patients of the "Covid long" put under pressure in a society that values ​​work

Restrictions also imposed in the United States

Like Japan, the United States is also considering imposing restrictions on the entry of people from China into its territory.

This was announced by the authorities on Tuesday, December 27.

The United States is "

following scientific evidence and the advice of public health experts, consulting with partners, and considering taking similar actions...to protect the American people

," US officials said, worried it might not. know

the official figures

of the epidemic in China as well as to lack "

 transparent data, in particular on the viral genomic sequences 

".

(With

AFP

)

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