Peter Wade
You’re alleging that few foreign tourists visit China? It’s the most visited nation in Asia and one of the top five most visited countries in the world! China has been doing quite well in the tourism business. However, if you were to rephrase the question to address future predictions, then you might be onto something. There are mounting reasons that more and more travelers are choosing to avoid China, and why Westerners are losing interest in visiting.
To be clear, I’ve been to China twice and absolutely loved it! During my travels to nearly 80 countries, the food is the best local cuisine I’ve ever had! China has a very low crime rate and stunning historical sites. But there are an increasing number of issues threatening tourism.
This question was posed by a Chinese national. To them, China is simply home. To the rest of the world, it’s one of the last remaining Communist countries. That scares people. Communism is associated with dangerous places like Russia and North Korea. It conjures up images of the persecution perpetuated by Kim Jong Un, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Fidel Castro. Whether or not the association is fair, communism chases away potential tourists.
Because this question was first posted on June 30, 2023, about three-and-a-half years after a certain global pandemic started in China, you must know part of the answer to your question. While world travelers were desperate to return to international travel during a global lockdown, they were understandably leery of entering China! Even worse, strict lockdowns caused China to feel the full effects of the pandemic much later than other countries which certainly discourages tourism.
Along with communism comes unsettling behavior. Visitors can be detained on violations that are clearly unfounded or as bargaining chips to potentially free Chinese officials who have been arrested abroad. Dozens of Westerners are currently detained in China under mysterious circumstances, and drug possession can warrant the death penalty (several Canadians and Americans are currently facing this fate). When you’re locked up in China, you are not given the common courtesy of a trial date nor contact with the outside world. That’s a scary prospect akin to being detained in Iran or kidnapped in Somalia, but happening in a civilized country.
It is widely known that the Chinese government blocks unflattering Internet posts, and Westerners do not support that sort of muzzling of free speech. You could get years in prison for speaking negatively about the Chinese government, and that’s certainly not normal.
Visas can be difficult to obtain through China’s overzealous embassy. They have a reputation for rejecting visas for extremely petty reasons, and people don’t want to risk paying for a vacation they cannot take. On my second trip to China, I applied for a visa three months in advance. I waited patiently for my visa to arrive. Within 24 hours of my flight without a visa, I was told that China mysteriously rejected the perfectly fine photograph I had submitted far in advance, one taken by a company that does professional passport photography. I scrambled to have another picture taken, tossed it onto a FedEx truck just about to pull out of the business, and narrowly made the deadline. The approved visa was delivered to me only one hour before I left for my flight, which is very unsettling when you’ve spent US$10,000 (¥71,387 RMB) on a vacation you may not be able to take!
There are many other factors at play. Unlike other tourist destinations, there is little to no English posted or spoken in China. The country has children as young as 10 years of age doing physical labor, something Westerners oppose. The reasons for avoiding travel to China are numerous and mounting. If they’re serious about maintaining a significant tourism industry, changes will need to be made
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