Beijing suspends short visas for South Koreans and Japanese, in “retaliation” to the health restrictions imposed on travelers from China. This decision came on Tuesday, January 10, the day after a phone call between the new Chinese Foreign Minister and his counterpart in Seoul. She shocked the Korean community in China.
With our correspondent in Beijing, Stephane Lagarde
It is above all the semiconductor manufacturers who are worried about the consequences of this suspension. Groups like Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, which have factories in China, are watching developments closely.
Because the sector requires many field visits. The two countries are located two hours away by plane. Before the Covid, Korean executives and technicians regularly crossed the Yellow Sea to come and check production on site in China.
However, the Chinese authorities have decided to no longer issue M (business) visas and T (tourist) visas. For the latter, it is less serious: the Lunar New Year holidays with the family and especially the Omicron tsunami had, in any case, dissuaded Korean tourists from coming.
It is therefore above all, here, business visas that are targeted. Some analysts see it as “ reprisals ” Chinese, not to the health restrictions imposed by Korea, but to the fact that Seoul has indicated its intention to join the “Chip 4” alliance which links the main producers of semiconductors – South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and States -United.
An agreement obviously very badly perceived by the Chinese power. For the Korean community in China, it is both an air of deja vu, with the memory of the sanctions which followed the purchase by Seoul of the American antimissile defense system THAAD.
But it is also a cold shower, knowing that visas (S2) for family visits are also suspended, while like all foreigners, South Koreans in China have been waiting for three years for the reopening of the Chinese borders.
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