China immigration official says 1.35 million applied for passports, visas since Jan 8

An official from China's immigration bureau said on January 13, 2023, that 1.35 million people had applied for passports as well as Hong Kong and Macau visas since January 8, the date the country opened its borders after three years. The reopening was one of the last steps in China's dismantling of its zero-Covid regime, which began in December 2022, after rare protests against curbs that kept the virus at bay for three years but caused widespread frustration among its people and severe damage to the world's second-largest economy.