Top News: Chinese visits to US drop

▶ Experts blame strict visa rules, social climate

Chinese experts blamed tightening visa policies and an inhospitable social climate in the US for keeping Chinese tourists, students and business executives from visiting the country.

US State Department data shows 102,000 fewer Chinese people received business, leisure and educational visas from May to September, a 13 percent drop year-on-year, the Washington Post reported on Monday.

The US enjoys a sizable services surplus with China, a sector that has grown more than three times as fast as the shipment of goods, the newspaper reported.

Citing an expert, the report also expects the trade friction to escalate and China to start a boycott of US services, which will have an immediate impact on tourism.

“China did not use people-to-people exchanges as a tool in the trade friction initiated by the US,” Song Guoyou, director of Fudan University’s Center for Economic Diplomacy, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

The US should reflect on its visa barriers that keep Chinese visitors away, Song said, noting that tourists and students avoid the US because lengthy checks and rejection risks will interrupt their study and travel plans.

Chinese tourists contributed $33 billion to the US economy in 2016, according to the US Travel Association, but the situation has changed.

“The number of Chinese tourists has dropped by around 30 percent during the National Day holiday compared to last year,” a US-based industry insider surnamed Wu told the Global Times on Wednesday.

Some customers had to cancel the travel packages they booked because their visa applications were rejected, Wu said.

Some people chose to travel to Canada instead after consulting them about the visa issue, he noted.

More than 370,000 Chinese students comprise the largest source of international students in the US.

But Xiong Bingqi, deputy director of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, stressed that Chinese students may give British and Canadian schools greater consideration over deteriorating China-US relations.

He Huiyu, an overseas education consultant from Shanghai, confirmed a higher rate of rejection for student visas this year.

“As application season approaches, many of our students decided to shift to countries like the UK and Australia,” He told the Global Times.

The trade friction has led to a decline in business trips, Bai Ming, deputy director of the International Market Research Institute under the Ministry of Commerce, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

“Stricter regulations and US enmity hampered economic exchanges, and the loss is shouldered by both Chinese and US enterprises,” Bai said.

He noted that Chinese companies are developing domestic and foreign markets other than the US in response to the trade friction.

Former vice commerce minister Wei Jianguo told the Global Times previously that the trade friction should not spill over to cultural exchanges.