Mozambique gets the green light for Chinese tourists

Us spoiled first-world Westerners take so much for granted. Not the least of which is the countries that our governments actually lets us visit. For Chinese citizens however, this is normal and the communist Party has only recently begun to ease restrictions of movement for its people. The United States for example, old news for most world travellers, is being re-discovered by more and more Chinese every year as their government allows them to journey across the Pacific to the USA.

The Chinese seem to be mellowing out and letting some slack in their ropes of social control these days, and now Mozambique has been ‘pre-approved’ for travel by Chinese tourists.

On September 8^th, the Chinese government officially announced for the capital of Mozambiaque, Maputo, that the doors were open between the two nations. The deal was first sought when the World Tourism Conference was held in China four years ago.

Mozambique is now one of over 30 state sanctioned holiday destinations approved by the Chinese. What glad-handing went on behind the scenes to allow the cash cows of the new Chinese middle class traipse through a country and drop big bucks remains a mystery, but one can assume the motives are not so much to assure tourist safety as political wrangling for a piece of an as yet unknown pie.