China’s borders have been virtually closed for more than two years. Trade and investments with the world continue to flow, but people have great difficulty entering the country due to the policy to control the pandemic.
The consequence is that the Chinese are less and less exposed to foreigners. And foreigners have less and less access to China and the Chinese. The effects of this isolation, I suspect, are underestimated.
In the first half of 2021, China issued 2% of the number of passports issued in the same period in 2019, according to the Sixth Tone platform. In 2021, the National Immigration Authority recorded only 4.6% of the number of foreigners entering and leaving in 2019. Last month, Chinese authorities announced the restriction of Chinese travel abroad for “non-essential reasons”.
China is already a country of very few foreigners by international standards. According to the UN’s World Migration Report 2022, immigrants in China are 0.1% of the population —99.9% are Chinese.
The president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China recently said that the foreign population in the country has halved since the start of the pandemic. And that could be halved again due to anti-Covid policies.
When you put the pieces together, the result is not trivial. Tourists from other countries in China and Chinese tourists in the world disappeared. Business travel has become a rarity for both Chinese abroad and foreigners in the world’s second economy.
Journalists acting as correspondents in the country are fewer. Language teachers, who make up an important part of the expat community, felt tightened around education rules in the past year, and many have left the country for good. From students to artists, from businessmen to scientists, everyone is still having great difficulties in obtaining an entry visa. Even foreign embassies in Beijing appear to be less staffed than in the past.
This is not about debating the merits of the zero-tolerance policy for the virus, which, if simply abandoned, could lead to China’s staggering 1.5 million deaths, according to a recent study. The point is that, in analyzes of the international impact of this policy, the focus is invariably on the economic dimension. There is more than that at stake.
Interactions between Chinese and foreigners are a powerful and often underestimated source of mutual understanding. They serve to question prejudices; invite both sides to reconsider stereotyped views. They add nuance, subtlety and complexity to the understanding of the other. The approach favors friendships, new businesses, dialogue and openness. These are valuable interactions to understand how the other thinks and sees the world. To put yourself in someone else’s shoes.
It may seem like something minor, but these skills are very important for the international order that is being redesigned. China’s growing relevance would need to be accompanied by reduced ignorance about the country — but isolation has the opposite effect. The Chinese’s more limited exposure to the world doesn’t help either.
At a time when 82% of Americans have a negative view of China, according to the Pew Research Center, the drastic decrease in interactions between citizens of the two countries only fuels estrangement and distrust. Civilizing dialogue not only between China and the US, but between China and the world will be increasingly important for world stability in the coming decades. As justified as it may be, Chinese isolation has side effects that go beyond the impact on global GDP.
