The Economist January 22nd 2022 Asia 35G
iant red lanterns and long stream
ers adorn the foyers of Phuket’s resort
hotels: the upcoming Chinese (lunar)
new year is not to be marked by half
measures. Thailand’s paradise island on
the edge of the Andaman Sea went out of
its way to reopen to foreign holidaymak
ers—tour parties of mainland Chinese,
above all. Last July it pioneered the use of
the “sandbox”: tourists who were jabbed,
tested and insured, and who had a bot
tomless appetite for formfilling and a
readiness to submit to two further co
vid19 tests, could enter Thailand with
out quarantine provided they had a
resort hotel to stay at for a week. After
that, they were free to travel to all other
parts of the country.
In Phuket airport staff and health
officials are models of polite efficiency.
Guests are indeed showing up at the
huge hotel at which Banyan is staying,
albeit fewer than half as many as before
the pandemic. There is no shortage of
Europeans, Russians and SouthEast
Asians. But for all the newyear dec
orations, not a single Chinese holiday
maker, says a manager, has booked to
stay. Before the pandemic, in 2019, Chi
nese made up 12m of Thailand’s 39m
international arrivals. The Thai authori
ties’ prediction in July that 2m foreigners
would visit Phuket in the second half of
2021, generating $3.4bn, was predicated
on a huge influx of Chinese tourists who
never arrived.
Although Omicron has set back plans,
much of SouthEast Asia remains com
mitted to reopening to holidaymakers.
Travel and tourism accounted for over
12% of the region’s gdpbefore the pan
demic. Yet Chinese tourists will remain
the rarest birds, for a simple reason. The
government in Beijing has a zerocovid
policy. When a few infections crop up, itlocks down whole cities to contain them.
It discourages travel abroad (mandating
that international flights be cut to 2.2% of
precovid levels for the winter season) and
imposes strict and lengthy quarantines on
those returning home. This approach is
driven by politics as well as health. The
government wants the (spectatorfree)
winter Olympics to go off smoothly next
month. Later in the year the Communist
Party holds a crucial fiveyearly congress
at which President Xi Jinping’s already
considerable powers and personality cult
will be elevated further. Not even a pesky
germ may cross him.
It is the last straw for the region’s al
ready troubled tourist industries. Before
the pandemic, Chinese were the most
numerous visitors in nearly every Asian
country. Japan, Singapore, South Korea,
Thailand and Vietnam were among their
top ten destinations worldwide.
For richer economies, the impact is
less severe. In Japan domestic travellers
spent over four times the ¥22trn ($192bn)
disbursed by foreigners in 2019. On South
Korea’s balmy southern island of Jeju,Koreans holidaying close to home have
replaced hordes of Chinese. Still, some
businesses are in pain. Chinese visitors
to Japan multiplied more than sixfold in
the seven years to 2019. When they van
ished, over a dozen shops closed in one
newish mall alone in Ginza, Tokyo’s ritzy
shopping district. Myeongdong, its
equivalent in Seoul, is deserted.
Elsewhere, busloads of Chinese once
could not get enough roast duck and
fried rice in Singapore’s (overpriced)
Chinatown food street. Now it has shut
down. In Bangkok’s Or Tor Kor market,
tables once groaned with durians for
Chinese buyers; now stallholders have to
borrow to stay afloat. In Cambodia the
temples of Angkor Wat are eerily empty.
Like tiny Laos next door, which saw
nearly 900,000 Chinese visitors in 2019,
Cambodia badly needs Chinese income,
not least to help service its growing
infrastructure debts to China.
The Chinese absence is not univer
sally regretted. Chinese tour parties have
appalled locals with their poor etiquette.
In Thailand and Vietnam shoving match
es have erupted as holidaymakers raid
hotels’ seafood buffets. In Seoul Chinese
tourists would stride unbidden into
university libraries, photographing the
students working there. In Kaohsiung
airport in Taiwan one mother notori
ously let her child defecate on the floor
rather than take him to the nearby toilet.
And the tourism authorities in Hokkaido
in northern Japan, which is famous for
its onsen(hotspring baths), were so
concerned about visitors belching, fart
ing and talking loudly on their mobile
phones that they published a guide in
Chinese on good behaviour. These days
some onsenoperators are missing Chi
nese visitors so much they might even
tolerate a few bubbles in the bath.Asia is reopening to foreign tourists, but Chinese ones are staying awayBanyan Year of the absent tiger
not on whether his reasons for doing so
had “merit”. The government did not need
to show that Mr Djokovic’s views on vacci
nation were a threat to public safety, only
that they “might” be so. “The bar does not
get any lower than that,” says Mr Barns.
The case could set a worrying new stan
dard. Recent Australian governments have
locked out rabblerousers and conspiracy
theorists. (Katie Hopkins, a British right
wing pundit, was deported in 2020 after
she attempted to “frighten the shit” out of
hotel quarantine guards, by opening her
door naked, and without a face mask.) Un
like them, Mr Djokovic has not “incited vi
olence, flouted quarantine or engaged in
hate speech”, says Michael Stanton of Lib
erty Victoria, a civilrights group. The ath
lete has seldom discussed his views on
vaccination publicly. The government
claimed they were “widely understood”.
His “perceived” opinions, not just his ex
pressed ones, could fire up antivaxxers, it
said. On those grounds, Australia could
lock out anyone it says might stoke public
discontent, says Mr Stanton. “That is a pre
cedent which will be used to stifle legiti
mate political expression.”Most Australians seem to have little in
terest in joining antivax groups; 82% of
citizens have received at least one covid19
jab. Yet certain members of the govern
ment still try to court antivax votes. Ge
rard Rennick, a Liberal senator, has posted
accounts of alleged vaccine sideeffects on
Facebook. George Christensen, a renegade
mpbelonging to the coalition’s smaller Na
tional Party, has told parents not to jab
their children. The difference, claims the
prime minister, Scott Morrison, is that
they are Australians.So they have a right to
talk bull’s wool.n