China has restarted its visa-free arrangement for short-term visitors from Japan and eight other nations, including Bulgaria and Romania, in a bid to boost tourism, trade and investment.
Japanese travellers can now enjoy visa exemption on stays of up to 30 days until the end of calendar year 2025, marking an extension to the previous waiver, which was on stays of up to 15 days and had been suspended since March 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The extension is designed to make tourism and business travel from Japan “more convenient” than before, according to the Chinese government.
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi welcomed the move, stating that the government hopes the resumption of visa-free entry into China for Japanese travellers will help “promote more people-to-people exchanges”.
China is one of 24 countries and regions in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific that is receiving priority promotion as tourist destinations in a bid to boost outbound travel from Japan. Launched in May 2023, the campaign is run by the Japan Tourism Agency and the Japan Association of Travel Agents, with the cooperation of overseas tourism bureaus.
It is unclear, though, how effective such campaigns and the new visa waiver, might be in increasing Japan outbound travel to China.
Overseas travellers from Japan totalled only 1.2 million in September 2024, 30.8 per cent less than in the same month in 2019, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. Furthermore, Japan-China relations have been strained this year, most recently by the fatal stabbing of a Japanese schoolboy in Shenzhen in September.
