India suspends Chinese tourists' visas after Beijing bars its students

About 20,000 Indians enrolled at Chinese universities have been blocked from returning to the country after the pandemic

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he raised the issue of students returning to China when his counterpart Wang Yi visited New Delhi last month. @DrSJaishankar / Twitter

India has suspended tourist visas issued to Chinese citizens in a response to China blocking the return of thousands of Indians enrolled at Chinese universities over coronavirus concerns.

The International Air Transport Association, a global body with 290 members, last week issued a circular stating that Indian “tourist visas issued to citizens of China are no longer valid”.

Indian authorities have not commented.

India reopened its borders to international visitors in March to revive its pandemic-hit hospitality industry amid global vaccination efforts and falling infection rates.

Chinese travellers, the largest group of international tourists, rank among India's top 10 foreign visitors by nationality.

More than 280,000 Chinese tourists visited India in 2018, according to government estimates.

The cancellation of tourist visas is seen as a retaliatory move by New Delhi after it failed to convince Beijing to allow Indian students entry despite waning coronavirus cases, global vaccination coverage and normalisation of global transport.

About 20,000 Indian students are seeking to return to China to resume physical classes after they left the country when the pandemic began in early 2020.

China is the only country that is taking steps to prevent international students from entering, according to Global Admissions, a website supporting students who seek to study abroad.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said in February that his ministry had been saying for over a year that Beijing wanted an orderly return of the students under Covid-19 safety protocols.

In March, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar told reporters that he raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi during the latter's surprise visit to New Delhi.

“I took up strongly the predicament of Indian students studying in China who have not been allowed to return, citing Covid restrictions. We hope that China will take a non-discriminatory approach since it involves the future of so many young people,” Mr Jaishankar said.

Despite a strict “zero-Covid” policy involving lockdowns and mass testing, outbreaks of the disease have been reported in many Chinese cities in past months, most recently in Shanghai. On Saturday, Beijing authorities reported 10 cases among students at a middle school.