BEIJING (AP) – The Chinese government has sharply criticized the COVID-19 testing requirements imposed on passengers from China and threatened countermeasures against countries involved, including the United States and several European nations.
“We believe that some countries’ entry restrictions targeting China have no scientific basis and some excessive practices are even more unacceptable,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mao Ning said at a daily briefing on Tuesday.
“We are firmly opposed to attempts to manipulate the COVID response for political ends and will take countermeasures based on the principle of reciprocity,” she said. Mao has not indicated what steps China might take.
The comments were China’s harshest yet on the issue. Australia and Canada this week joined a growing list of countries requiring travelers from China to take a COVID-19 test before boarding their flight as China battles a nationwide outbreak of the coronavirus after restrictions, that applied for much of the pandemic were abruptly eased.
Other countries, including the US, UK, India, Japan and several European nations, have announced stricter COVID-19 measures for travelers from China amid concerns about a lack of data on infections in China and fears that new variants could potentially emerge.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne defended the tests. From Wednesday, anyone flying from China to France must present a negative virus test taken within the last 48 hours and be randomly tested on arrival.
“We are in our role, my government is in its role to protect the French,” Borne said on Radio France-Info on Tuesday.
The UK will require passengers from China to take a COVID test before boarding the plane from Thursday. Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the requirement is to “gather information” because Beijing is not sharing coronavirus data.
Health officials will test a sample of passengers when they arrive in the UK, but quarantine will not be required for those who test positive, he said.
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“Policy on arrivals from China is primarily about gathering information that the Chinese government does not share with the international community,” Harper told LBC radio on Tuesday.
The Swedish health agency said on Tuesday that it had asked the government to require travelers from China to present a recent negative COVID-19 test.
The agency’s statement comes as Sweden, which has taken over the EU’s rotating presidency, called a meeting of the EU’s crisis management mechanism for Wednesday to try to agree on a common European line.
The Swedish government is “preparing to be able to introduce travel restrictions. At the same time, we are conducting a dialogue with our European colleagues in order to get rules that are as equal as possible in the EU,” Justice Minister Gunnar Strömmer said in a statement.
Austria also plans to test the wastewater from all planes arriving from China for new variants of the coronavirus, the Austria Press Agency reported on Tuesday, after Belgium made a similar announcement a day earlier.
Chinese health officials said last week they had submitted data to GISAID, a global platform for sharing coronavirus data.
Versions of the virus fueling infections in China “closely resemble” those seen in different parts of the world between July and December, GISAID said on Monday.
dr Gagandeep Kang, who studies viruses at the Christian Medical College of Vellore in India, said the information from China, albeit limited, seems to indicate “the pattern is holding” and that there are no signs of a worrying variant emerging.
Mao, spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said health authorities recently held a video conference with WHO to exchange opinions on the current COVID situation, medical treatment, vaccination and other technical issues, and agreed to facilitate the technical exchanges continue to help end the pandemic as soon as possible.
A senior Hong Kong official also criticized the moves by some other countries. Some countries have applied the requirements to passengers from Hong Kong and Macau, both semi-autonomous Chinese territories, as well as mainland China.
Hong Kong chief secretary Eric Chan said in a Facebook post the government wrote to various consulates on Monday to express concerns about the “unnecessary and inappropriate” rules.
Some Canadian experts have questioned the effectiveness of the tests. Kerry Bowman, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine, said people can continue to test positive long after they’ve entered the country.
The requirement is “not based on scientific evidence at this time,” he said after Canada announced measures last weekend.
China, which has been following a “zero-COVID” strategy for most of the pandemic, imposing strict restrictions to eradicate the virus, abruptly eased those measures in December.
Chinese authorities earlier said that from Jan. 8, overseas travelers would no longer need to quarantine upon arrival in China, paving the way for Chinese residents to travel.
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Associated Press writers John Leicester in Paris, Sylvia Hui in London, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Kanis Leung in Hong Kong and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.