COVID-19 Update – China Officially Releases International Travel Health Certificate

Last Monday, 8th March 2021, China’s version of the international travel health certificate was officially launched on the WeChat mini program, available for Chinese citizens. This was announced by the official WeChat account of the Department of Consular Affairs under the Foreign Ministry (FM).

The Chinese travel health certificate has an encrypted QR code which departments of different countries can use to verify its authenticity and check for personal information. Aside from the health certificate’s electronic display, it can also be printed for paper version.

In the certificate, you can see nucleic acid test and serum antibody results, vaccine inoculation and other information. Using the encrypted code, authorities can verify the holder’s personal information, according to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As the world strives to go back to normal and continue life with the pandemic, health factors in international personnel exchanges will become even more important.

This is a hard copy of the health certificate for international travelers.
[Photo/Foreign Ministry’s Department of Consular Affairs]

In the future, as more countries forge mutual recognition of health certificates with China, the Chinese government hopes for its version of international travel health certificate to play a significant role in healthy, safe and orderly exchanges of transnational personnel. It also aims to assure Chinese citizens when traveling across the world, the FM said.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China’s State Councilor, released the statement at a press conference held on the fourth session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) on Sunday.

China will roll out health certificates for international travelers to facilitate the safe and orderly flow of personnel. All this will be done while protecting personal privacy, and realizing the mutual recognition of information on COVID-19 nucleic acid tests and vaccinations, Wang said.

Wang also said that China is open to discuss mutual recognitions of COVID-19 vaccinations with other countries. This will be helpful in resuming people-to-people exchanges in an organized and safe way.

China is willing to address concerns raised by outside parties, coordinate with each country’s health code information mutual recognition mechanism, provide one another with visas and other cross-border travel conveniences, and actively promote the establishment of healthy, safe and orderly personnel movements, according to Zhao Lijian, foreign ministry spokesperson.

 In picture: a passenger tries scanning his health code
inside a car-hailing service. Photo: Liu Caiyu/GT

Reference: 

Chinese version of international travel health certificate officially rolled out. (2021, March 8). Global Times. https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1217747.shtml

Content crafter at China Admissions with nine years of professional writing experience. Fil-Chinese who honors my heritage every day. On a fascinating journey exploring China and tracing my ancestry. See China through my lens.
Christine Chiu

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