China has said it will impose tight restrictions on “non-essential” overseas travel for its citizens to help contain the worst coronavirus outbreak the country has seen in the past two years. The immigration authorities on Thursday said the curbs were designed to stop infections crossing the border and would include a more rigorous approval process for passports and other travel documents and a crackdown on illegal border crossings. ‘Big blow to students’: China’s zero-Covid effectively cancels US placement exam A meeting of the National Immigration Administration (NIA) on Tuesday heard that China’s Covid-19 situation was at a “significant and urgent point” and that the city of Beijing was the “most important of the important”. A statement on the agency’s website said the meeting had been called to relay the decisions taken at a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee chaired by President Xi Jinping on May 5, where the leadership doubled down on China’s zero-Covid policy saying it “will stand the test of time”. Although the statement did not define non-essential travel, the NIA said in another statement on Friday that travel documents would be processed for those travelling to school and work as well as for travellers conducting trade and scientific research. Travelling to seek medical treatment and to care for the critically ill also count as essential travel. The NIA said it would speed up the approval of travel documents for people involved in pandemic control and those providing necessities to ensure supply chains remain stable. Chinese health authorities have repeatedly pointed at the overseas origins of outbreaks in the country, in some cases blaming letters and packages from abroad – a theory that has prompted widespread scepticism internationally. China’s immigration authorities have already restricted approvals of travel documents for its citizens since the beginning of the pandemic, and Chinese citizens have complained of being unable to renew passports. But the NIA in a statement on Friday denied it had stopped issuing passports or was invalidating residency cards of other countries held by Chinese nationals. It also said unnamed media outlets outside China “distorted and smeared” the country’s immigration policy. In the first half of 2021, China only issued 335,000 passports, mainly for studying abroad, business trips and employment, 2 per cent of the total for the same period in 2019, the NIA said last year. A Guangzhou resident surnamed Xu said he tried to renew his passport in 2020 to see his son who is studying in the US, but was turned down. He was told if he was not studying abroad, had business or had an invitation letter, he should not travel abroad. “I cannot understand this, even if it’s for outbreak prevention,” he said. He is not counting on his son coming home for the summer this year, due to strict restrictions. Despite the restrictions, demand to travel continues. On popular forum Xiaohongshu, users listed creative ways to get a passport, including travelling abroad for a Chartered Financial Analyst test or hiring agents to vouch for job or school offers. One post said that it was going to be the “new normal” to find it hard to get a passport, adding: “The more materials you can prepare, the earlier you can get it, the better. It’s only going to get stricter from here.” China hits out at ‘irresponsible’ WHO chief over zero-Covid criticism In March, the Ministry of Public Security said there would be stricter rules on approving entry-exit permits and a crackdown on illegal activities. While the capital resorts to drastic measures to try to stop infections in the city at an early stage, its financial heart Shanghai has been in lockdown for more than a month . At least 15 Chinese provinces have also recorded local infections in recent days. Additional reporting by Jack Lau