China reopens borders for travellers in final farewell to zero-Covid

Travellers streamed into China by air, land and sea on Sunday, as Beijing opened its borders that have been  shut since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

After three years, mainland China opened sea and land crossings with Hong Kong and ended a requirement for incoming travellers to quarantine, dismantling a final pillar of a zero-Covid policy that had shielded China’s 1.4 billion people from the virus but also cut them off from the rest of the world.

Long queues formed at the Hong Kong international airport’s check-in counters for flights to mainland cities including Beijing, Tianjin, and Xiamen. Hong Kong media outlets estimated