Looks like China’s not placing a Great Wall between their tourists and the country after all. The Chinese embassy in Manila has denied Senate President Miguel Zubiri’s comment that the Philippines had been placed on China’s tourism blacklist due to the presence of offshore gaming operations in the country.
During a hearing yesterday, Zubiri had cited information he supposedly received from the Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Huang Xilian, that the blacklisting had been due to issues surrounding Philippine offshore gaming operations, or POGO.
“Ambassador Huang said that the Philippines now is part of a blacklist of tourist sites because they do not know if a tourist will be joining POGO operations and they don’t know if their nationals who go to the Philippines will be safe from illegal activities being done by the triad, by the syndicates operating POGOs,” Zubiri said during a Senate committee hearing on POGOs.
In response, the Chinese Embassy in Manila late on Tuesday issued a statement denying what Zubiri had claimed. “The report of ‘tourist blacklist’ is misinformation. China has not placed the Philippines on its blacklist for tourism,” it wrote.
These offshore gaming operators, which are illegal in China, set up shop in the country during the Duterte administration, leading to an influx of Chinese workers to the Philippines. In June 2019, there were 56 POGOs licensed with the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) estimated to be employing 100,000 to 250,000 Chinese nationals, although the estimate could have been higher considering the numerous reports about Chinese workers in the country without work permits.
This led to a rise in other controversies in the capital, such as the displacement of Filipino condo dwellers as Chinese nationals drove up condo rentals, and alleged discrimination as “Chinese-only” restaurants with signs in Mandarin began popping up.
The Chinese ambassador said in a post yesterday that he had met with Zubiri, as well as senators Robin Padilla and Win Gatchalian, calling their meeting “‘warm and fruitful’ and said that more Chinese tourists are expected to visit the country.”
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, close to two million Chinese nationals travelled to the Philippines in 2019, making China the second largest source of tourists. We expect more Chinese tourists to come to this country after the pandemic,” the ambassador wrote.
The embassy also thanked the Philippines for shutting down certain POGO operations and “rescued Chinese citizens,” adding that “crimes induced by and associated with Pogo not only harm China’s interests and China-Philippines relations, but also hurt the interests of the Philippines.”
