The US embassy has declared a suspension on Chinese nationals for the use of Visa-related transactions due to 'limited staffing.' It was revealed that regions in China such as Guangzhou, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Shenyang may not respond to the regular visa services but may accommodate emergency appointments.
The visa travel ban has been imposed on Taiwan as well. According to Health Undersecretary Eric Domingo, the World Health Organization (WHO) considers Taiwan as a part of China. Thus, the travel restriction was also imposed to the country.
Last Saturday, the US embassy in Beijing announced released an official statement on its website announcing that regular visa services may not be available in regions such as Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang.
Residents of these states have been imposed with a travel ban that also puts students unable to enter educational institutions normally. It was also announced that future plans for Chinese citizens that involve traveling would also be disrupted for those who seek to go to Australia.
According to the announcement, only those who have emergency appointments may be accommodated and that they must have urgent travel needs to be granted visa services. Furthermore, they must also ensure that they are covered by the exemption laid down in the Presidential Proclamation on Coronavirus. These include unmarried people under 21 years of age, lawful permanent residents, US citizens who have permanent residences in China, and parents or legal guardians of US citizens or permanent residents if they are US citizens or are unmarried lawful permanent residents.
People who have urgent travel needs were considered exempt from the mandate under the pretense that they must submit an emergency appointment request.
The mandate also carried with it cancellation of appointments until further notice on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa appointments that were scheduled for 2020 following the date of the proclamation.
The persons covered as those EB-5 immigrant visa applicant that already have scheduled interview appointments. They would also be served with cancellation notices in the next days.
The US embassy announced that the limited staffing in the locations' embassy and consulates cannot be expected to provide timely responses for the rescheduling of the requests at present.
In other news, Nikkei reported that the Thailand government has kept its doors open to Chinese tourists into the country. The report claimed that Thailand is confident that it can maintain public health and economic benefits from Chinese travelers.
The country dropped its visa-on-arrival fee waiver to attract Chinese tourists. However, countries such as Singapore continue to ban the entry of all Chinese passport holders and those that have a recent history of travel to China.
Furthermore, the US also imposed a mandate regarding foreign nationals that arrive in the country and have been traveling to China within a 14-day incubation period.
