China’s National Day holiday is more than a week-long period of travel and consumption. It is also a real-time test of how effectively China’s growing openness to the outside world is translating into economic activity and people-to-people exchanges.
The evidence is encouraging. From January to August, foreign nationals made 61.29 million trips across China’s borders, up 19.5% year on year. Of these, 23.72 million entries were made under visa-free policies, up 26.8%. Visa facilitation is therefore becoming more than a matter of convenience. It is increasingly becoming part of China’s broader engagement with the global economy.
