China no longer requires a negative COVID-19 test result for incoming travellers, representing, a milestone in its reopening to the rest of the world after a three-year isolation that began with the country’s borders closing in March 2020. The new measure (or lack thereof) was announced Monday and came into effect Wednesday (Aug. 30).

China in January ended quarantine requirements for its own citizens travelling from abroad, and over the past few months has gradually expanded the list of countries that Chinese people can travel to and increased the number of international flights.

Beijing ended its tough domestic “zero COVID” policy only in December, after years of draconian curbs that at times included full-city lockdowns and lengthy quarantines for people who were infected.

As part of those measures, incoming travellers were required to isolate for weeks at government-designated hotels. Residents were in some cases forcibly locked into their homes in attempts to stop the virus from spreading.

Protests in major cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Nanjing erupted in November over the COVID curbs, in the most direct challenge to the Communist Party’s rule since the Tiananmen protests of 1989.

In early December, authorities abruptly scrapped most COVID controls, ushering in a wave of infections that overwhelmed hospitals and morgues.

During the years of “zero COVID,” local authorities occasionally imposed snap lockdowns in attempts to isolate infections, trapping people inside offices and apartment buildings.

From April until June last year, the city of Shanghai locked down its 25 million residents in one of the world’s largest pandemic-related mass lockdowns. Residents were required to take frequent PCR tests and had to rely on government food supplies, often described as insufficient.

Throughout the pandemic, Beijing touted its “zero COVID” policy – and the initial relatively low number of infections – as an example of the superiority of China’s political system over that of Western democracies.

Since lifting the COVID curbs, the government has been contending with a sluggish economic recovery. The restrictions, coupled with diplomatic frictions with the United States, Canada, and other Western democracies, have driven some foreign companies to reduce their investments in China.