Walk through central Beijing today and one thing quickly becomes apparent: foreigners are back. They are taking photos outside the Forbidden City and sitting in cafes around Gulou and Sanlitun. The shift is visible online, too; YouTube is increasingly filled with videos titled “China Shocked Me” or “My First Week in China”. Most of the creators are tourists, not China specialists or journalists, and many of them are encountering the country for the first time.

The resurgence is striking because to many outside observers China’s story has become one of closure and increased security – of intensifying strategic rivalry with the west, expanded anti-espionage enforcement and increasingly constrained foreign reporting, including the withholding and revocation of visas for US journalists. Yet on the ground, another story is unfolding. When it comes to its relationship with the rest of the world, Beijing increasingly appears to be betting on direct exposure: come to China and judge for yourself.

Driving the change is one of the most consequential shifts in China’s external engagement in years: an expanded and upgraded policy for travelling without a visa. From 2023, Beijing started to grant 30-day visa-free entry to ordinary passport holders from 50 countries, including every G7 member except the US, and 25 of the EU’s 27 member states. Its 240-hour visa-free transit policy also now allows eligible travellers from 55 countries, including the US, to spend up to 10 days in large parts of China while travelling onwards to a third destination.

And it’s working. In the first half of 2026, entries and exits across China’s borders once again reached a historic high. Arrivals by foreign nationals rose by 20.6% from a year earlier. Notably, 17.8 million entered without a........

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