During his welcome ceremony at the White House on 24 September, President Xi Jinping said China and the United States should ‘increase direct flights to facilitate two-way travel and trade’. Xi also announced an invitation for 100,000 young Americans to visit China over the next five years for study and cultural exchange, echoing past initiatives such as the ‘100,000 Strong’ programme of the 2010s. The remarks come as the two countries negotiate a new bilateral air services agreement. Only 48 weekly round-trips are currently authorised, down from more than 300 before the pandemic. Restoring capacity would ease supply-chain pressures on multinational firms and shorten transit times for executives shuttling between innovation centres in Silicon Valley, Boston and Shenzhen. In parallel, Beijing is extending unilateral 30-day visa-free entry to several European nations and has signalled readiness to include the United States once ‘appropriate conditions’ are met, according to Ministry of Foreign Affairs sources. Xi’s youth-exchange pledge could be an early confidence-building measure, with group charter flights and scholarship programmes expected to follow. Companies should prepare for a gradual but meaningful uptick in U.S.-China travel from early 2027. Travel managers may want to lock in corporate fares before additional capacity tightens pricing, and universities should revisit dormant exchange agreements that stalled during the pandemic.
Source: Xinhua
