By Bernard Orr
BEIJING - Chinese state-media said Covid-19 testing requirements imposed by several places around the world in response to a surging wave of infections were "discriminatory", in the clearest pushback yet against restrictions that are slowing down its re-opening.
Having kept its borders all but shut for three years, imposing a strict regime of lockdowns and relentless testing, China abruptly reversed course toward living with the virus on Dec. 7, and a wave of infections erupted across the country.
Some places have been taken aback by the scale of China's outbreak and expressed scepticism over Beijing's Covid statistics, with the United States, South Korea, India, Italy, Japan and Taiwan imposing Covid tests for travellers from China.
"The real intention is to sabotage China's three years of Covid-19 control efforts and attack the country's system," state-run tabloid “Global Times” said in an article late on Thursday, calling the restrictions "unfounded" and "discriminatory."
China will stop requiring inbound travellers to go into quarantine from Jan. 8. But it will still demand a negative PCR test result within 48 hours before departure.
Italy on Thursday urged the rest of the European Union to follow its lead, but France, Germany and Portugal have said they see no need for new restrictions, while Austria has stressed the economic benefits of Chinese tourists' return to Europe.
Global spending by Chinese visitors was worth more than $250-billion a year before the pandemic.
The United States have raised concerns about potential mutations of the virus as it sweeps through the world's most populous country, as well as over China's data transparency.
The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention is considering sampling wastewater from international aircraft to track any emerging new variants, the agency told Reuters.
China, a country of 1.4 billion people, reported one new Covid-19 death for Thursday, same as the day before - numbers which do not match the experience of other countries after they re-opened.
The lifting of restrictions, after widespread protests against them in November, has overwhelmed hospitals and funeral homes across the country, with scenes of people on intravenous drips by the roadside and lines of hearses outside crematoria fuelling public concern.
Health experts say China has been caught ill-prepared by the abrupt U-turn in policies long championed by President Xi Jinping.