With the high-altitude missile defense system and THAAD deployment as an opportunity, Chinese group tours to South Korea, which have been suspended, are expected to resume.
According to Chinese sources today (10th), it is known that the Chinese Ministry of Culture and Tourism will make an announcement that it will allow its citizens overseas group tours to countries around the world, including Korea, at the earliest.
It is reported that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs recently notified the diplomatic authorities of Korea and Japan that they would allow group tours of their citizens.
It is intended to enable online and offline travel agencies to sell group travel products and ‘air ticket + hotel’ package products to their citizens.
The Chinese government, in effect, allowed group tours to Thailand and Indonesia in January, right after it switched to ‘With Corona’, and in March, it took the same action to 40 countries.
However, Korea, the United States, and Japan were excluded from the 1st and 2nd group tour permitted countries.
For this reason, there was an interpretation that the visa conflict between Korea and China and the unfriendly sentiment between the two countries were taken into consideration.
If China allows group tours to countries around the world this time, in the case of Korea, it will resume 6 years and 5 months after the deployment of THAAD.
In March 2017, China put the brakes on Korean group tours by preventing the sale of tour products as a retaliatory measure following the deployment of THAAD by the USFK.
In addition, the Chinese Embassy in Korea announced through its WeChat (Chinese version of KakaoTalk) account the previous day that the process of taking fingerprints when issuing a visa to China in Korea will be suspended until the end of this year for some visas, such as travel.
The Chinese Embassy in Korea has been fingerprinting for all Chinese visa applicants since January 2021.
With the temporary suspension of fingerprinting, the visa issuance process for Korean travelers seeking to visit China is expected to be somewhat simplified.
[사진 출처 : 연합뉴스]
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2023-08-09 23:54:00
