Zichen Wang: China expands visa-free entry for tourists

China expands visa-free entry for tourists, Beijing seeks more visitors as consumption weakens, the opening runs one way

In the first half of 2026, entries and exits across China’s borders reached a historic high, and foreign national arrivals rose by 20.6% from a year earlier, according to figures cited in a Guardian opinion essay by Zichen Wang. The same piece says 17.8 million people entered without a visa in that period, accounting for 77.7% of total entries. In central Beijing, Wang describes foreign tourists again photographing the Forbidden City and filling cafes around Gulou and Sanlitun.

The policy behind the rebound is unusually concrete. Since 2023, China has granted 30-day visa-free entry to ordinary passport holders from 50 countries, including every G7 member except the US, and 25 of the EU’s 27 member states, the Guardian writes. Separately, China’s 240-hour visa-free transit scheme allows eligible travellers from 55 countries—including the US—to spend up to 10 days in large parts of the country while travelling onward to a third destination. The effect is to lower the friction for short visits at a moment when Beijing is trying to pull in foreign spending and counter pressure on domestic consumption.

Wang frames this as a form of soft power: invite outsiders to “judge China for yourselves” rather than through headlines about strategic rivalry, sanctions and constrained foreign reporting. The mechanics matter because they shift who carries the cost of China’s image problem. Instead of relying on diplomats or state media, Beijing is effectively outsourcing persuasion to tourists and travel creators, with YouTube now crowded with videos titled “China Shocked Me” and “My First Week in China”. A visitor who posts about high-speed trains, dense cities and mobile payments can reach audiences that would ignore official messaging.

But the openness is also selective. The Guardian notes China is not requiring reciprocity: the UK and Japan still require visas from Chinese travellers even as their own citizens can enter China more easily. That asymmetry makes the programme look less like a mutual liberalisation and more like an export promotion tool, calibrated to bring in foreign currency and reduce reputational risk without giving Chinese citizens equivalent freedom of movement.

The timing overlaps with a broader shift in international sentiment. Wang cites a Pew Research Center survey finding China is now viewed more favourably than the US in most of the 36 countries surveyed. If that trend holds, visa-free access becomes a way to convert abstract opinion into actual arrivals, hotel nights and restaurant bills—while also creating a steady stream of first-hand accounts that compete with the narrative set by governments and large newsrooms.

In June 2025, Wang writes, Chongqing staged a drone light show. A year later, China is betting that the cheapest marketing is to let visitors film the country themselves, then leave through the same border control that waved them in.