Reciprocal arrival measures justified

Authoritative medical experts from different countries have said that entry restrictions on travelers arriving from the Chinese mainland, or with any travel history there within seven days, are unnecessary. China firmly opposes some countries’ politicization of their virus control measures for arrivals exclusively from the mainland.

These discriminatory practices are devoid of any scientific basis and do not serve their stated purpose. Instead, they seek to strengthen the image some China-bashers in Western countries are dying to create that China is the source of all troubles.

But that has not prevented China from acting responsibly as the major exporter and donator of essential medical supplies and life necessities for the rest of the world, including those countries doing nothing to control spillovers of the virus or taking the initiative to smear China with baseless charges, slander and lies.

China always distinguishes the few bad apples from the rest of the foreign peoples, and it has never stopped doing all it can to help foreign countries overcome their practical difficulties while protecting its own people from the virus.

And contrary to the claims of those trying to tar China with a malign brush, the country has been sharing relevant information and data in an open and transparent manner with the international community, including sharing the genome data of the virus from the latest COVID cases in China via the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data. Therefore, it is fully justified for the spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China to say, on the one hand, that China stands ready to step up communication with the rest of the international community and work together to prevail over COVID, and on the other, that it firmly rejects using COVID measures for political purposes and “will take corresponding measures in response to varying situations based on the principle of reciprocity”.

Predictably this has provoked a reaction from the China-bashing politicians, who claim it is proof of China’s “double standard”, referring to the fact that China has carried out stringent entry virus control measures for three years.

However, as always, their smears are selective as they intentionally omit the fact that many countries controlled their borders at that time as well. Nor did China target arrivals from any particular country or region. The measures were an integral part of the country’s overall COVID policy, based on science and the actual pandemic situation. So there are fundamental differences between the politicized and discriminatory entry restriction measures arrivals from the mainland are being subjected to now and those that China previously applied.

It is these China-bashers that have been criticizing China’s strict virus control policies as a grave mistake, and it is also these people that are doing the same now that the country has lifted its controls at the proper time. That is not a coincidence.