Lunar New Year is already happy for many as China drops travel restrictions

It's been three long years since Longchang Fu, of South Setauket, has seen his parents, who live in a small city just outside Shanghai in eastern China.

But last week, Fu, who works in investment management on Suffolk County's East End, hopped a 15-hour flight from New York to China for an emotional Lunar New Year reunion with his family. The move comes as China, for the first time since 2020, has lifted its strict COVID-19 testing and quarantine policies.

"My parents are excited and I'm excited," Fu said during an interview from China on Thursday. "For a long time we haven't seen each other. Before COVID, I would come to China once or twice a year. But not since then. So we are very happy to see each other."

For nearly three years, Chinese authorities have enforced a strict zero-COVID approach to try to prevent the virus from further infiltrating the country.

But last month, following rare public protests, China abruptly dropped its near-daily COVID testing and its monitoring of residents. And on Jan. 8, China dropped most of its remaining restrictions, including a requirement that overseas travelers, including those arriving from the U.S., quarantine for five days at a hotel, followed by three days at home. Previously the quarantine period was as high as three weeks.

Visitors entering China must still provide a negative COVID test taken 48 hours before departure, and airplane passengers are required to wear face masks while on board, government officials said. 

And when Fu returns home to Long Island in two weeks, he will again be required to provide a negative COVID test — a move imposed by the U.S. government recently because of the soaring numbers of COVID cases and deaths in China and a lack of transparency in reporting case data by Chinese officials.

The quarantine and testing restrictions, imposed by the Chinese government, served to prevent most Americans from visiting with family and friends in China, or those living there from traveling out of the country.

Experts said the lockdowns and restrictions had a serious impact on the word's second-largest economy, with China's economic growth last year reaching one of its lowest levels in nearly 50 years.

Gordon Zhang, president of the Long Island Chinese American Association in Syosset, anticipates that the end of the quarantine restrictions will prompt many more Long Islanders to travel to China in the coming weeks and months.

"Most people haven't had the chance to go back for the past few years," Zhang said. "So with these travel restrictions lifted, from what I've heard so far from people, I expect it would trigger a huge wave of people going to visit their families."

But the combination of relaxed travel restrictions and the start of the Lunar New Year has sparked a wave of travel — although not yet to pre-pandemic levels, according to tourism experts.

Lunar New Year is generally celebrated with parades, visits with family, feasts and fireworks. More than a billion people globally are expected to welcome in the Year of the Rabbit when the celebrations begin on Sunday.

“For Lunar New Year, the most important thing is family reunion,” said Ashley Xie, co-founder of Rooted Fare, a California-based company that will host a culinary workshop at Stony Brook University on Feb. 3 featuring Chinese American staples such as sesame butter mochi balls made to symbolize the full moon and reunion with family.

“For many people, this is the first time in three years some people are connecting with their families. Families haven’t seen each other for three years now and are back together again at one big table,” Xie said.

China's Ministry of Transport estimates that more than 2.1 billion passenger trips will be made nationwide during the 40-day travel period around the holiday between Jan. 7 and Feb. 15.

With John Asbury

By Robert Brodsky

robert.brodsky@newsday.com@BrodskyRobert

Robert Brodsky is a breaking news reporter who has worked at Newsday since 2011. He is a Queens College and American University alum.