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China has announced plans to provide visas to Indian professionals and their families stranded in India for over two years following the strict visa restrictions imposed by Beijing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, the Chinese Embassy in India updated its COVID-19 visa policy after over two years to accept visa applications of foreign nationals and their accompanying family members wanting to go to China for resumption of work in all fields.
It is a big relief for hundreds of Indian professionals and their families who are stuck back home since 2020.
Last month, a number of Indian professionals based in China urged External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to press Beijing to allow their stranded families to return.
Besides Indians some of whom have Chinese spouses, many Chinese employees working for various companies were also stranded in India due to Beijing's blanket visa bans and flight cancellations.
In April, after prolonged representations from India, China agreed to permit the return of “some" stranded Indian students and asked the Indian Embassy here to collect the details of the students wanting to return.
As per earlier reports, over 23,000 Indian students, mostly studying medicine in Chinese colleges, are stuck in India after they returned home as the coronavirus broke out in China in December 2019. They could not return to China due to the restrictions imposed by the Chinese government to arrest the spread of the contagion.
China is yet to come up with a criterion to permit the return of the students as Beijing is reluctant to allow such large number of people to return at once in view the recent spike in COVID-19 cases in the country.
Currently, only diplomats between the two countries travel through the expensive third-country flight routes.
(This has been published in partnership with PTI.)
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