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The Independent
08-07-2025
- The Independent
China extends visa-free entry to more than 70 countries to draw tourists
Foreign tourists are trickling back to China after the country loosened its visa policy to unprecedented levels. Citizens from 74 countries can now enter China for up to 30 days without a visa, a big jump from previous regulations. The government has been steadily expanding visa-free entry in a bid to boost tourism, the economy and its soft power. More than 20 million foreign visitors entered without a visa in 2024 — almost one-third of the total and more than double from the previous year, according to the National Immigration Administration. 'This really helps people to travel because it is such a hassle to apply for a visa and go through the process,' Georgi Shavadze, a Georgian living in Austria, said on a recent visit to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing. While most tourist sites are still packed with far more domestic tourists than foreigners, travel companies and tour guides are now bracing for a bigger influx in anticipation of summer holiday goers coming to China. 'I'm practically overwhelmed with tours and struggling to keep up' says Gao Jun, a veteran English-speaking tour guide with over 20 years of experience. To meet growing demand, he launched a new business to train anyone interested in becoming an English-speaking tour guide. 'I just can't handle them all on my own' he said. After lifting tough COVID-19 restrictions, China reopened its borders to tourists in early 2023, but only 13.8 million people visited in that year, less than half the 31.9 million in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. 30 days for many in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast In December 2023, China announced visa-free entry for citizens of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia. Almost all of Europe has been added since then. Travelers from five Latin American countries and Uzbekistan became eligible last month, followed by four in the Middle East. The total will grow to 75 on July 16 with the addition of Azerbaijan. About two-thirds of the countries have been granted visa-free entry on a one-year trial basis. For Norwegian traveler Øystein Sporsheim, this means his family would no longer need to make two round-trip visits to the Chinese embassy in Oslo to apply for a tourist visa, a time-consuming and costly process with two children in tow. 'They don't very often open, so it was much harder' he said. 'The new visa policies are 100% beneficial to us,' said Jenny Zhao, a managing director of WildChina, which specializes in boutique and luxury routes for international travelers. She said business is up 50% compared with before the pandemic. While the U.S. remains their largest source market, accounting for around 30% of their current business, European travelers now make up 15–20% of their clients, a sharp increase from less than 5% before 2019, according to Zhao. 'We're quite optimistic' Zhao said, 'we hope these benefits will continue.' Group, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said the visa-free policy has significantly boosted tourism. Air, hotel and other bookings on their website for travel to China doubled in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year, with 75% of the visitors from visa-free regions. No major African country is eligible for visa-free entry, despite the continent's relatively close ties with China. North Americans and some others in transit can enter for 10 days Those from 10 countries not in the visa-free scheme have another option: entering China for up to 10 days if they depart for a different country than the one they came from. The policy is limited to 60 ports of entry, according to the country's National Immigration Administration. The transit policy applies to 55 countries, but most are also on the 30-day visa-free entry list. It does offer a more restrictive option for citizens of the 10 countries that aren't: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. Sweden is the only high-income European country that didn't make the 30-day list. Ties with China have frayed since the ruling Chinese Communist Party sentenced a Swedish book seller, Gui Minhai, to prison for 10 years in 2020. Gui disappeared in 2015 from his seaside home in Thailand but turned up months later in police custody in mainland China. ___
South China Morning Post
16-06-2025
- South China Morning Post
5 ways to enter mainland China without a visa
Visiting China used to be a costly, time-consuming process. Obtaining a Chinese visa often requires filling out pages of paperwork, paying more than US$100, and waiting for days for the documents to be processed. But things have changed rapidly over the past few years, as Beijing has introduced a slew of new visa-free entry policies in a bid to attract more foreign visitors and boost the country's tourism sector. Most famously, the country now allows travellers from certain countries that are transiting through China to stay in the country without a visa for up to 10 days. The scheme currently covers passport holders from 55 nations, with Indonesia becoming the latest country to be included in June. There are also several other visa-free policies in effect, each of which has different rules and eligibility criteria. Here are five different options for travellers planning to enter the mainland without a Chinese visa. 1. Transit through Chinese cities (10 days) Passport holders from 55 nations – including Australia, Russia, the United States and countries throughout Europe – can enjoy an extended stay in much of mainland China when transiting through one of its international airports. Travellers can enter China via 60 ports of entry across 24 provincial-level regions under the scheme, including airports in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guilin, Kunming, Qingdao, Shenyang, Tianjin, Wuhan, Xiamen, Guangdong province and the Shanghai-Jiangsu-Zhejiang cluster.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
AI-generated video of glass bridge breaking misleads online
"A viral glass tourist bridge in China cracked and collapsed," read Indonesian-language sticker text over a video shared on Instagram on May 20, 2025. The clip appears to show people crossing a glass platform against a cliff face, which breaks and falls into the ravine below. The clip, which also spread on Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok and Facebook, garnered more than two million views. Comments from some users indicate they believed the footage was real. "The load was too much," one user commented. "Terrifying, isn't it?" wrote another. China is believed to have more than 2,000 glass bridges and platforms at various tourist sites across the country (archived link). However, the last reported safety incident at a glass bridge in China was in May 2021 -- a man was left dangling at a tourist spot in northeastern Jilin province when the glass panels were damaged by high winds, according to a report by state news media Xinhua (archived link). A close inspection of the clip also shows inconsistencies typical of AI-generated videos. These include people appearing to melt into the cliff before reappearing in different coloured clothes, while two of the people appear to combine into one person after the bridge collapses. One section of the glass guardrail also disappears immediately after the bridge breaks. Despite the rapid progress of generative AI, errors still appear in AI-generated content. These flaws are often the clearest signs of a fabricated image. Jacobo Castellanos, coordinator for human rights organisation WITNESS, which developed a Deepfakes Rapid Response Force said "it's clear that the video in question is AI-generated" (archived link). "Several signs point to its synthetic nature, including people morphing or disappearing, as well as various unnatural movements and transitions that are characteristic of the current capacity of generative video tools," he said. AFP has fact-checked AI-generated images before here.
