Speaking of deals...
China eases visa rules for India, tapping into US$21.6 billion travel market
Indian nationals will now be able to apply for Chinese visas online as Beijing and New Delhi gradually move to normalise economic ties
Beijing and New Delhi have taken another step towards normalising economic ties after a five-year rift, as China moves to introduce a simplified visa process for Indian nationals that could help it tap India’s fast-growing travel market.
The Chinese embassy in New Delhi said earlier this month that Indian citizens would be able to apply for visas online from December 22, sparing them time-consuming initial in-person visits to the embassy or other consular offices in the country.
The move follows the
between India and China in October after a five-year suspension. While the world’s two most populous nations remain strategic rivals competing for regional influence, relations have gradually thawed since a
in 2020, analysts said.
“Generally speaking, China is relaxing its visa controls, and for China-India the megatrend is to have more engagement with each other,” said Victor Gao, vice-president of the Centre for China and Globalisation think tank in Beijing. “Granting more flexibility to Indians to visit China … would be highly appreciated.”
The simpler visa policy could help China grab a bigger slice of India’s lucrative outbound travel market, which was worth US$21.6 billion last year and is predicted to balloon to US$61.7 billion by 2033, according to a report by Indian research firm MarketsandMarkets.
Indian tourism to China was growing fast before 2020, with 142,000 Indian nationals visiting the country in 2019, a 19 per cent increase from the previous year, according to travel industry platform India Outbound. But travel then cratered amid the pandemic and growing political tensions.
Travellers from India would be more likely to visit China once they could file visa applications “faster”, said Pradip Putatunda, president of the Indian Recreation Club in Hong Kong, who has extensive contacts among Indian nationals in the city.
“I’m 100 per cent sure it will be helpful and people will react positively,” Putatunda said. “People are willing to go to China for business and for travel purposes.”
Indians face visa restrictions in many countries, making places with simplified travel rules attractive to middle-class tourists, according to Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.
“Any country that simplifies visa requirements for Indian nationals usually benefits significantly from tourism because of the difficulty for Indians travelling to most countries in the world,” Menon said.
China has extended visa-free travel and simpler visa processing policies to dozens of countries since 2023 as part of a push to
and
.
Business travel between China and India was also likely to rise, analysts said. China’s exports to India
of US$113.46 billion in the financial year from April 2024 to March 2025, according to the Indian embassy in Beijing. India shipped US$14.24 billion in goods the other way.
To join global supply chains, India’s businesspeople “can’t avoid creating engagement with China”, Menon said.
If travel is made easier, “the two countries can benefit a lot”, Gao said. “These two economies are complementary to each other.”
As in other countries where Chinese visas are required, online applicants in India still must visit the Chinese embassy or a Chinese consular office for a final evaluation and approval of the travel document.
Ugh. This one reasons I hate capitalism or rather the pursuit of needing to make more profit every year. Like I don't want cheap ass Indian tourists who sleep in the hotel lobby so they don't have to pay for a room. Did you know there are Indian tourists who demand to eat at a restaurant and order the cheapest stuff while demanding the restaurant kicks out everyone but them? Yes these things actually happened in China. For some reason all that crap about how authoritarian or dystopic China is with spy drones, it wasn't enough to stop them acting like this. Weibo is full of "experiences" with these Indian tourists and they make the early obnoxious naive Chinese tourists look truly civilized. Its all relative of how much you can be asshole and there are frankly no limits to it.
But as you know they only look at that US$21.6 billion travel market figure and go WOW I MUST HAVE THAT!
