China has announced an expansion of its visa-free travel program, which began last year and allows travelers from 54 countries, including the U.S., to enter China without prior visa approval if they are in transit to another country. The new policy raises the limit on how long those travelers can stay to 10 days, up from a maximum of six days.
This change by China’s government is a modest measure, but it is reflective of Beijing’s continued efforts to reestablish China as a destination for travelers amid a post-pandemic slump in the tourism industry. Since reopening its borders in late 2022, the country has not even come close to reaching pre-pandemic tourism levels, even as other popular destinations around the world reached new peaks due to pent-up demand once travel restrictions were lifted. The lack of spending by tourists only worsens the problems facing China’s economy.
Reinvigorating China’s tourism industry will likely be an uphill battle, though. Beijing’s draconian COVID-19 lockdown measures, which lasted nearly three years, exacerbated a growing perception—tied to geopolitical tensions in Western countries—of China as uninviting. Meanwhile, crackdowns on political dissent, the further tightening of space for free speech and high-profile arrests of foreign nationals in China have only compounded that view.
The result is a growing image among Western tourists—particularly Americans—of China as unsafe to visit for political reasons. That’s a problem for China from an economic perspective, but the decreased people-to-people exchange also has geopolitical implications. At a time of heightened tensions, the humanization of bilateral relations is an important way to build mutual understanding and defuse antagonism, with tourism one way to contribute toward that goal. That makes the drastic decline in the number of U.S. travelers going to China a problem.
Meanwhile, a similar drop in the number of U.S. students studying there will create a significant gap in knowledge and cultural exchange, and deprive the next generation of U.S. policymakers of first-hand experience of China. And these problems are only likely to get worse, as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to ramp up the trade war and hawkish rhetoric toward China when he returns to the White House next month.
Beijing is likely to take even more measures in 2025 to make traveling to and within the country easier. But those measures will do little to reverse the real challenge facing its tourism industry: the growing negative perception of China in Western countries.