China snubs ‘discriminatory’ Canada on tourism list

Last week Beijing lifted a Covid-era ban on group tours to dozens of countries including Australia, the US, Germany and Japan.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin says the West is exaggerating China’s woes. Picture: AFP

China, a major source of outbound tourists, has left Canada off a list of countries now approved for travel by tour groups, its embassy in Ottawa said overnight on Wednesday, due to anti-Beijing rattling by Ottawa.

Last week Beijing lifted a Covid-era ban on group tours to dozens of countries including Australia, the US, Germany and Japan, but not Canada.

Travel agents turn to the list of approved destinations when promoting and arranging foreign vacations for Chinese nationals. There are 138 countries on the list.

The Chinese embassy in Ottawa said in a statement that the reason behind the snub was “the Canadian side has repeatedly hyped up the so-called ‘Chinese interference’ ”.

It said “rampant and discriminatory anti-Asian acts and words are rising significantly in Canada” and “the Chinese government attaches great importance to protecting the safety and legitimate rights of overseas Chinese citizens and wishes they can travel in a safe and friendly environment”.

The UN tourism agency says China grew to be the biggest tourism source market in the world prior to the pandemic. In 2019, Chinese tourists spent a collective $US255bn on international travel.

Group tours from China to Canada were first approved in 2010. In 2018, nearly 700,000 Chinese visitors came to Canada, spending an average of $C2600 ($3012) per visitor, or a total of $C2bn – out of $C22bn spent collectively by all foreign travellers, according to a report by the Canada China Business Council.

That same year, tit-for-tat arrests of a top Huawei executive in Vancouver on a US warrant and two Canadians living in China, accused of espionage, dealt a serious blow to bilateral relations.

Ottawa accused Beijing of engaging in “hostage diplomacy”, before a deal was eventually reached with US prosecutors that saw all three people released in 2021. China-Canada relations hit a new low this year amid accusations of Chinese meddling in Canadian elections and the attempted intimidation of MPs that led to the expulsion of a Chinese diplomat in May.

Beijing responded by sending home a Canadian diplomat from Canada’s consulate in Shanghai.

Janice Thomson, head of tourism at Niagara Falls – the top tourism destination in Canada – said China’s decision to leave Canada off its approved destinations list was “disappointing”. She expressed hope Canada would make it on to the list in a future round of country additions.

Country Garden’s logo on top of a building in Zhenjiang in China's eastern Jiangsu province. Picture: AFP

The Chinese leadership has accused the West of exaggerating the growing challenges besetting the country’s once booming finances, even as more woes were reported in key areas of the economy. China has had one of its worst months for economic data since the pandemic lockdown, which it enforced more tightly and for longer than anywhere else in the world.

In recent days, officials have reported big falls in imports and exports, the engine of its growth model. This week, China said it would stop reporting rates of youth unemployment after they topped 20 per cent. But the Communist Party, which has made its economic successes the central justification for its continued authoritarian rule, insisted its mixture of state-led and free-market policies was still working.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said China had to expect a rocky ride back to economic health after its fight against coronavirus. “After the smooth transition of the epidemic prevention and control, China’s economic recovery is a wavelike development and a tortuous process, which will inevitably face difficulties and problems,” Mr Wang said at a regular Foreign Ministry press conference on Wednesday.

“A number of Western politicians and media have hyped up the periodic problems in China’s post-epidemic economic recovery process. But eventually, they will for sure be proven wrong.”

Mr Wang was speaking as more problems were reported among China’s giant property development companies, which have been driving the domestic economy. The new middle classes have splurged on modern apartments as acres of crumbling, communist-era blocks are demolished, but cheap loans from state-led banks have led to a glut.

A company called Country Garden has become the second of the six biggest property companies to get into difficulties, after the near-collapse of Evergrande two years ago, which sent shivers through world stockmarkets. It also put rare pressure on President Xi Jinping just as he was preparing to force through constitutional changes allowing him a third term as party boss, a goal he achieved last year.

AFP