With the Lunar New Year just around the corner, it is becoming increasingly difficult for Chinese nationals overseas to return home for the holidays. The Chinese government’s new regulations allow embassies to “consider multiple factors” in deciding whether to issue a health code that would allow Chinese nationals to return home. This has resulted in some people being told they cannot board a plane before they get on it. However, people returning to Taiwan from overseas during the same epidemic had a completely different experience.
Chinese Embassy Issues “Red Code” for Chinese Citizens to Return Home
More than a dozen Chinese citizens dragging their luggage and covering their faces with the protest slogan “I want to go home” pose for a group photo in the lobby of the Dallas airport. Some of them are holding up their cell phones with red health codes, which is the reason why they can’t get a flight back home. The reason given by the Chinese Communist Embassy was, “Your trip is not essential or urgent.”
“We have been honest all our lives and have been in the U.S. for so many years, and finally we were forced by China to protest against our home country in the U.S. airport. In fact, there were many people at the scene who were angry and agreed to hold signs in protest, but when it was time to take pictures, many of them left in silence. I understand their plight, they are afraid they will be invited to tea.” A Chinese citizen who experienced the whole process wrote in a post on a North American Chinese website on Jan. 14.
The post was titled “Talking to everyone about my parents’ experience of getting a red code on flight AA127 and not being able to return to China”. By the 19th, more than 222,000 people had viewed it and 911 followed it.
The author wrote that his parents were supposed to fly to Shanghai on flight AA127, and that they were both on tourist visas. They had already passed the “double test” of negative nucleic acid test and serum antibody (IgM) within 48 hours, as required by the Chinese Embassy, to return home.
The two elderly people watched the plane leave at the airport with their luggage in tow.
The author said she cried not because of the money and effort, but because the most basic right of a citizen to return to his own country was denied without any criteria. “I cried because the high and mighty embassy could treat us so arrogantly and unfairly. Crying because it is surprising that a citizen holding a Chinese passport needs to rack his brain to prove why he wants to go back to his own country.”
Some Chinese held a sign inside a U.S. airport asking the Chinese Communist Embassy in China to allow them to travel to China (North American Chinese eNet)
“Your trip is non-essential and non-urgent”
The road back home for Chinese citizens stranded in the U.S. has gotten tougher again so far this year.
In March of last year, the Chinese Embassy in the United States established the requirement to fill out a WeChat international health code to return home, upgraded the requirement to add a nucleic acid test in September, and added the requirement for a “double test” in November. In December, it was further stipulated that the test would only be approved if done in the city of direct flight, and that the laboratory recommended by the embassy or consulate must be used.
On December 30, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. again issued an important notice strongly urging “no travel unless necessary and urgent. The embassy’s notice also reminded that “we will consider many factors in deciding whether to issue a health code. Please consider your trip carefully to avoid financial and other losses.”
However, no one is sure of the criteria for deciding whether to issue a health code “after taking into account a variety of factors.
At press time, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. had not responded to our inquiries.
North American ticketing staff at Ctrip, a major Chinese travel website, told the station that since this year, travel agencies have received dozens of cases of people unable to return to China from the U.S. because they could not obtain a “green code.
“In the past, the test was actually negative, basically you can pass (to get the green code), but I do not know (the reason), two weeks ago, a group of flights, more than 30 guests, the embassy did not issue the green code to him, the ticket was finally invalid.” The ticket agent said that the travel agency will now advise Chinese citizens not to return to China first, so as not to cause losses.
What is the experience of overseas Taiwanese returning to their home country?
Compared to Chinese citizens who have difficulty returning home and have no recourse, Dai Xiaofan, who just returned to Taiwan from the United States a few days ago, had an almost completely different experience.
“Experiencing the ROC government’s approach during my return to Taiwan made me feel that they had done a good job in preventing the epidemic and that every step was well thought out.” Dai told the station, “I feel like the government is taking care of everyone here, including people like me who are returning from overseas.”
Taiwan currently requires that nucleic acid testing be provided within 72 hours of returning to Taiwan. If the test report cannot be obtained immediately due to emergency or special circumstances, the test report can be signed in the form of a cut-off letter and then tested at one’s own expense after boarding the plane and returning to Taiwan. After returning to Taiwan, it is necessary to follow the provisions of 14 days quarantine, and 7 days of independent management.
Dai Xiaofan said that many people may have stories of not being able to help themselves when they choose to fly long distances during the epidemic. But her experience tells her that from the moment she arrived in Taiwan and stepped off the plane, there were clear arrangements in place immediately to assist passengers with cell phones and filling out information. After leaving customs, she took a vaccination taxi to a vaccination hotel, and the next day a local government immediately delivered a vaccination kit, providing all kinds of information assistance, down to recommendations that included book lists and fitness apps.
“What surprised me was that I felt that the ROC government was not the only one taking care of the epidemic, but that the general public was also very cooperative and they were well taken care of.
Hui-Min Hsu, who returned to Taiwan from the U.S. earlier this year and just finished a 14-day quarantine period, also experienced the torment of changing her airline ticket several times and worrying about the difficulty of getting her test results out in time, but when she talked about returning home, she was ready to feel warm, “I told people that today is my birthday, but since I came back to Taiwan, it’s been like a birthday every day.”
Like the Chinese citizens at the beginning of the story, Dai Xiaofan and Hsu Huimin earnestly shared their long journey back home on the Internet.
Dai Xiaofan graphically recorded every detail of her return to Taiwan: the airport, the vaccination kit, the thermometer. She said she hopes to show her American friends how a place with successful epidemic prevention does it; Hui-Min Hsu shared various tips on booking tickets, entry, and epidemic prevention in the Taiwanese community. She said she hopes to help more people returning home.
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