The Chinese embassy in South Korea has suspended the issue of short-term visas for South Korean visitors, it said in a notice on Tuesday, the first retaliatory move against nations imposing Covid-19 curbs on travellers from China.

The embassy will adjust the policy subject to the lifting of South Korea's "discriminatory entry restrictions" against China, it said on its official WeChat account.

The announcement came a day after Foreign Minister Qin Gang expressed concern about the restrictions in a telephone call with his South Korean counterpart Park Jin, according to the Foreign Ministry.

Earlier, South Korea announced it would require travellers from China to provide negative Covid test results before departure.

The country also said it would restrict issuing short-term visas for Chinese nationals until the end of the month and that Incheon International Airport will be the only gateway for any flights from China, including those from Hong Kong and Macau.

Beijing has also stopped issuing new visas in Japan for travel to China.

The Foreign Ministry urged relevant countries to base their entry restrictions on facts and science, saying that such measures shouldn't be discriminatory.

The Japanese Government said it opposed the decision and urged China to revoke it.

State media have said that many parts of the mainland are already past their peak of Covid-19 infections.

A summary by Health Times, a publication managed by the People's Daily newspaper, said infections have been declining in the capital Beijing and several provinces.

Li Pan, deputy director of the Municipal Health Commission in the city of Chongqing said the peak there was reached on December 20, while in the province of Jiangsu, the peak was reached on December 22.

In Zheijiang province "the first wave of infections has passed smoothly," officials said, and two cities in Guangdong province reached their peaks before the end of the year.

Separately in the China Daily newspaper, a prominent health official said the percentage of severe cases remained unclear.

"It is still too early to conclude the overall percentage of severe and critical Covid patients in China as different types of hospitals report different numbers," Wang Guiqiang, head of Peking University First Hospital's infectious disease department, was quoted as saying. (Additional reporting by Reuters)
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Last updated: 2023-01-10 HKT 15:49