Japan announced Monday that it will ease strict border restrictions on passengers traveling from China starting Wednesday, just over two months after it tightened restrictions in the wake of Beijing’s scrapping of its “zero-COVID” policy.
Passengers traveling from mainland China will still be asked to present a negative COVID-19 test prior to departure, but testing upon arrival in Japan will change to a random sampling of up to 20% of a flight’s passengers.
Regulations on the number of airports open to direct arrivals from China — currently limited to Narita and Haneda airports in the Tokyo area, Chubu Airport in Nagoya and Kansai International Airport in the Kansai area — will be lifted to allow an increasing number of flights.