[2022-09-24] 纽约时报 - 亚洲大部分之前对疫情严控的国家开始开放边境

 

Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan have relaxed their pandemic rules, as they look to bolster their economies and play catch-up with much of the world.
香港、台湾和日本已经放宽了对疫情的规定，因为它们希望提振经济并追赶世界大部分地区。

Hong Kong said on Friday that it would abandon mandatory hotel quarantine for people coming to the city starting next week, following a similar move by Taiwan. Japan said it would drop its daily limit on arrivals and fully open its doors to tourists on Oct. 11.
香港周五表示，继台湾采取类似举措后，将从下周开始取消对来港人士的强制性酒店隔离。 日本表示，将在 10 月 11 日取消每日入境人数限制，并全面向游客敞开大门。

The flurry of moves this week have left just one major country with strict border controls: China, where the ruling Communist Party still clings to its “zero Covid” policy. Those who travel to China, mainly residents, still face 10 days of hotel quarantine at their own expense.
本周的一连串举措只留下了一个实施严格边境管制的主要国家：中国，执政的共产党仍然坚持其“清零”政策。 到中国旅游的人，主要是中国居民，仍然面临自费10天的酒店隔离。

When the pandemic swept across the world in early 2020, many governments in Asia were quick to shut their borders, with most places locking out anyone who wasn’t a resident. Reopening has been a grinding and slow process, as officials fretted over the vulnerability of their older populations and feared their health systems would buckle.
当疫情在 2020 年初席卷全球时，亚洲许多政府迅速关闭了边境，大多数地方都限制非本国居民来往。 重新开放是一个艰难而缓慢的过程，因为官员们担心老年人口的脆弱性，并担心他们的医疗系统会崩溃。

 

But the isolation has become difficult to bear, especially as much of the rest of the world has fully reopened. Cut off from big-spending tourists and facing economic headwinds, business leaders have increasingly pressured officials in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan to rethink their policies.
但隔离已经变得难以忍受，尤其是在世界其他大部分地区已经完全重新开放的情况下。 与肯花钱的游客隔绝，面临经济逆风，商界领袖越来越多地向日本、香港和台湾的官员施压，要求他们重新考虑他们的政策。

Over the past two years, Japan and Hong Kong have missed out on hosting major global gatherings, the type that are central to their identities as important hubs in the region.
在过去的两年里，日本和香港错过了举办大型全球聚会的机会，而这些聚会对于它们作为该地区重要枢纽的身份至关重要。

The Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled for August 2020, were held a year later, but spectators were barred from most events. Big, splashy events in Hong Kong like Art Basel, the Rugby Sevens and regional financial conferences were canceled as the city remained closed off to nonresidents.
原定于 2020 年 8 月举行的东京奥运会在一年后举行，但大多数赛事都禁止观众观看。 香港的大型、引人注目的活动，如巴塞尔艺术展、七人榄球赛和区域金融会议被取消，因为这座城市仍然对非居民关闭。

The pandemic perspective is shifting. Even as Covid cases have spiked in many parts of Asia, hospitalizations and deaths have fallen as more recent strains of Covid-19 prove to be milder. In many places, authorities have tolerated higher case numbers as their vaccination rates have increased.
疫情的观点正在发生变化。 尽管亚洲许多地区的武汉肺炎病例激增，但随着最近的武汉肺炎病毒株被证明更温和，住院和死亡人数有所下降。 在许多地方，随着疫苗接种率的提高，当局容忍了更高的病例数。

Last week, the World Health Organization chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the end of the pandemic was “in sight,” underscoring the collective readiness of many governments to begin to imagine a world beyond Covid-19.
上周，世界卫生组织总干事谭德赛表示，疫情的结束“近在眼前”，这突显出许多政府集体准备好开始想象武汉肺炎之外的世界。

“I’m conscious of the fact that, while we need to control the spread of Covid, we also need to ensure that there will be maximum activities in society and economic activities for society to carry on,” John Lee, Hong Kong’s top leader, said this week before the relaxation of the rules on Friday.
“我意识到，在我们需要控制武汉肺炎传播的同时，我们还需要确保社会和经济活动能够进行最大限度的活动，”香港最高领导人约翰·李 ，本周在周五放宽规则之前表示。

It was the starkest admission yet that the strict rules, tied closely to mainland China’s pandemic policy, had come at a cost that officials were no longer willing to tolerate.
这是迄今为止最赤裸裸的承认，与中国大陆的疫情政策密切相关的严格规定付出了官员们不再愿意容忍的代价。

Hong Kong had one of the strictest quarantine requirements for much of the pandemic, with 21 days of mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals at one point. On Friday, officials announced a policy, to take effect next week, that will require visitors to do only several days of P.C.R. testing and health monitoring.
在疫情的大部分时间里，香港拥有最严格的隔离要求，一度对入境者要求 21 天的强制性酒店检疫。 周五，官员们宣布了一项将于下周生效的政策，该政策将要求游客只进行几天的 P.C.R. 测试和健康监测。

 

Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, acknowledged the importance of international tourists for the country’s survival.
日本首相岸田文雄承认国际游客对日本生存的重要性。

“People around the world have been asking, ‘When can we travel to Japan?’” Mr. Kishida said on Wednesday, before the new rules were announced, according to the public broadcaster NHK. “Now, I hope they’ll make plans to visit Japan and get a taste of Japanese cuisine.”
“世界各地的人们一直在问，‘我们什么时候可以去日本旅行？’”据公共广播公司 NHK 报道，岸田先生周三在新规定宣布之前说。 “现在，我希望他们能够计划访问日本并品尝日本料理。”

In Taiwan, President Tsai Ing-wen said people were ready to reconnect to the rest of the world.
在台湾，蔡英文总统表示，人们已准备好与世界其他地方重新连接。

“It has finally come to the final moment of the pandemic,” Ms. Tsai wrote on her Facebook page. “Now, we must make every effort to revive tourism, stimulate the economy and lead Taiwan’s economy to develop by leaps and bounds.”
“终于到了疫情的最后时刻，”蔡英文在她的Facebook页面上写道。 “现在，我们必须全力振兴旅游业，刺激经济，引领台湾经济实现跨越式发展。”

 

With borders restricted, tourism has been slow to come back in much of the region. Once a top aviation hub, Hong Kong was “effectively off the map now,” Willie Walsh, the director general of the International Air Transport Association, said in April. Hong Kong International Airport reported just 5,080 passenger flights in August, compared with 30,000 in the same month of 2019.
由于边界受到限制，该地区大部分地区的旅游业复苏缓慢。 国际航空运输协会 (International Air Transport Association) 总干事威利·沃尔什 (Willie Walsh) 在 4 月表示，曾经是顶级航空枢纽的香港“现在实际上已经不在地图上”。 香港国际机场 8 月份报告的客运航班仅为 5,080 架次，而 2019 年同月为 30,000 架次。

In 2019, Japan took in around $46.1 billion from foreign tourism, according to the Japan External Trade Organization. Virtually all of that disappeared after the pandemic began.
根据日本贸易振兴机构的数据，2019 年，日本从外国旅游中获得了约 461 亿美元的收入。疫情开始后，几乎所有这些都消失了。

Before its latest move, Japan had tried in fits and starts to get tourism going. In June, the government changed the border rules, letting in tourists who agreed to participate in guided tours booked through travel agencies. In September, it changed the rules again, but still kept visitors on a tight leash.
在采取最新举措之前，日本曾尝试过尝试并开始推动旅游业发展。 6月，政府改变了边境规则，允许同意参加通过旅行社预订的导游团的游客进入。 9 月，它再次改变了规则，但仍然严格控制游客。

Things got off to a slow start: Only 12,405 tourists entered the country in June, according to government data.
事情开始缓慢：根据政府数据，6 月份只有 12,405 名游客进入该国。

Japan’s reopening could unleash a flood of pent-up travel demand, providing a much-needed boost to the country’s travel and hospitality sectors. Almost 32 million international tourists visited Japan in 2019, triple the number from six years before, according to government data.
日本的重新开放可能会释放大量被压抑的旅行需求，从而为该国的旅行和酒店业提供急需的推动力。 根据政府数据，2019 年有近 3200 万国际游客访问日本，是六年前的三倍。

 

But inbound tourism is unlikely to approach prepandemic levels anytime soon. Chinese visitors, who accounted for around 30 percent of Japan’s inbound traffic in 2019, are severely limited in their ability to travel under Beijing’s strict Covid policies.
但入境旅游不太可能很快达到疫情前的水平。 中国游客占 2019 年日本入境流量的 30% 左右，在北京严格的武汉肺炎疫情政策下，他们的旅行能力受到严重限制。

Domestically, Japan plans to encourage tourism by offering government-subsidized discounts to Japanese residents for hotels, restaurants and some kinds of entertainment, Mr. Kishida said. It is a revival of a plan, known as “Go to Travel,” that his predecessor introduced in an effort to increase domestic tourism after it was wiped out in the pandemic’s early months.
岸田先生说，在国内，日本计划通过向日本居民提供酒店、餐馆和某些娱乐项目的政府补贴折扣来鼓励旅游业。 这是他的前任推出的一项被称为“去旅行”的计划的复兴，该计划在疫情的最初几个月被消灭后，旨在增加国内旅游业。

Hong Kong, too, will find it difficult to rebound quickly. It is stuck in a balancing act between the demands of Beijing, which has ultimate say over what the city does, and the international community. So it can’t go as far as its neighbors in opening up.
香港也将难以迅速反弹。 它在北京的要求和国际社会之间陷入平衡，北京对这座城市的所作所为拥有最终发言权。 所以它在开放方面不能像它的邻居那样走得那么远。

While the new rules are a major change, they will still prevent visitors from going to restaurants and bars during three days of mandatory health monitoring, raising questions about whether they will be enough to attract tourists coming for a short visit.
尽管新规定是一项重大变化，但它们仍将禁止游客在为期三天的强制性健康监测期间前往餐馆和酒吧，这引发了人们对这些规定是否足以吸引短期访问游客的质疑。

The approach will be tested in the coming weeks, when heads of global banks are expected to converge at a summit promoted as evidence that Hong Kong is still worthy of its self-appointed title as “Asia’s World City.” It will also host a fintech conference and the Rugby Sevens in November, an annual tournament that was one of the city’s biggest events before the pandemic.
这种方法将在未来几周内得到检验，届时全球银行的负责人预计将在峰会上齐聚一堂，以证明香港仍然配得上它自封的“亚洲世界城市”的称号。 它还将在 11 月举办金融科技会议和七人榄球赛，这是一年一度的锦标赛，这是该市在疫情之前最大的活动之一。

Whether the mainland changes its tough rules, though, will matter most for the many small businesses that have come to depend on Chinese tourists.
不过，对于已经开始依赖中国游客的许多小企业来说，大陆是否改变其严厉的规定将是最重要的。

“The policy won’t really help us, because our business is largely affected by mainland tourists, whose consumption power is stronger than those from Europe and America,” said Wang Tat, 50, who owns a seafood restaurant on Lamma Island with local delicacies, like crab fried with ginger and clams in black bean sauce.
“这个政策对我们没有什么帮助，因为我们的业务主要受大陆游客的影响，他们的消费能力强于欧美游客，”50 岁的王达在南丫岛拥有一家海鲜餐厅，供应当地美食 ，如姜炒蟹和豆豉蛤蜊。

“I expect more European and American tourists to come and our business will be better, but our revenue probably won’t recover back to the prepandemic era,” Mr. Wang said, adding that he has lost most of his business during the pandemic.
“我预计会有更多的欧美游客来，我们的业务会更好，但我们的收入可能无法恢复到疫情前的时代，”王先生说，并补充说，他在疫情期间失去了大部分业务。

The Asian governments are all in need of the economic help.
亚洲各国政府都需要经济援助。

Japan’s economy has slowly begun to bounce back, with shoppers filling malls and families dining out. But the plunge in the yen, which is hovering around its weakest level in nearly 25 years, has been painful for domestic consumers.
日本的经济已经开始慢慢复苏，购物者挤满了商场，家庭外出就餐。 但徘徊在近 25 年来最低水平附近的日元暴跌令国内消费者感到痛苦。

In Hong Kong, thousands of small businesses have closed, unable to recover from several rounds of social distancing measures that forced restaurants and bars to remain shut for weeks or months. The tough measures, together with a crackdown on opposition in the former British colony, have prompted young Hong Kongers, expatriates and multinational companies to leave the city permanently.
在香港，数以千计的小企业已经关闭，无法从几轮迫使餐馆和酒吧关闭数周或数月的社会疏离措施中恢复过来。 严厉的措施，加上对前英国殖民地反对派的镇压，促使年轻的香港人、外籍人士和跨国公司永久离开这座城市。

 

While Taiwan’s economy has remained relatively healthy thanks to its semiconductor industry, tourism has suffered. Taiwan capped the number of arrivals during the pandemic, and for a while nonresidents couldn’t go there at all. In 2019, 11.8 million tourists visited Taiwan, compared with 140,479 last year.
虽然台湾的经济由于其半导体产业而保持相对健康，但旅游业受到了影响。 台湾在疫情期间限制了入境人数，有一段时间非居民根本无法去那里。 2019年有1180万游客到访台湾，而去年为140,479人。

“The dark days of waiting to travel abroad have finally come to an end,” said April Lin, 36, a Taiwanese tour guide in the central city of Taichung. “It’s a much-needed rain for many in the tourism industry.”
“等待出国旅行的黑暗日子终于结束了，”现年 36 岁的台湾导游林爱丽 (April Lin) 说，他在中部城市台中工作。 “对于旅游业的许多人来说，这是一场急需的雨。”

标红字体均为楼主更改，与原文作者无关。

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