China's Latest Problem: People Don't Want To Visit The Country

Half a year after China lifted Covid-19 restrictions and reopened its borders, few international travelers are coming another sign of decoupling between China and the West that could have negative repercussions for a long time.

- Wenxin Fan

Foreign travelers' absence is particularly evident in major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, where the numbers of foreigners who visited in the first half of the year totaled less than a quarter of comparable figures in 2019, before the pandemic.

Nationwide, just 52,000 people arrived to mainland China from overseas on trips organized by travel agencies during the first quarter, the latest period for which national data is available, compared with 3.7 million in the first quarter of 2019. As in past years, nearly half of the visitors came from the self-ruled island of Taiwan and the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau, rather than farther-away places like the U.S. or Europe.

"The number of visitors from Europe, America, Japan and Korea are all dropping, substantially," said Xiao Qianhui, a director with the semiofficial China Tourism Association in a speech in May.

Fewer tourists and businesspeople from overseas means fewer opportunities for foreigners to see China with their own eyes and interact with locals, an important factor in reducing geopolitical tensions, experts say.

The dearth of visitors could also be contributing to less investment in China. Foreign direct investment into the country fell to $20 billion in the first quarter, compared with $100 billion in last year's first quarter, according to an analysis of government figures by Mark Witzke at Rhodium Group, a research firm.

The drop in foreign investment and arrivals comes as China's economy stagnates, with a depressed housing market, youth unemployment at record highs and widening fears the country could be slipping into deflation. The Chinese economy barely grew in the second quarter from the first three months of the year.