Argentine soccer superstar Lionel Messi was detained on June 10 by Chinese police at a Beijing airport for more than two hours because of a visa issue.
Hordes of fans were waiting for him at the airport—with many wearing replicas of Argentina’s blue-and-white No. 10 jersey made famous by Messi and other greats, such as Diego Maradona, days ahead of an international friendly game against Australia at Beijing’s Workers Stadium. It was Messi’s seventh visit to China.
The World Cup winner for Argentina was stopped at customs and detained for not having an entry visa, according to media reports.
The former star for Spanish club Barcelona is now a dual citizen, and holds both Argentine and Spanish passports. According to the Chinese communist regime’s visa agreements, however, holders of Argentine passports can apply for tourist and business visas that are valid for 10 years and multiple visits upon entry to China, while holders of Spanish passports need to obtain visas in advance to enter the country.
Messi brought his Spanish passport to China this time, and reportedly hadn’t applied for a visa. While Spain doesn’t have a visa-free entry agreement with China, Spanish passport-holders can enter Taiwan without a visa.
Visa Waiver Issues
Most countries in the world follow the entry-visa principle of “reciprocity and mutual benefit”—that is, if the two countries agree, they can exempt each other’s citizens from the most stringent entry visa requirements. According to the Chinese communist regime’s data, as of 2019, there are only 14 countries that had full mutual visa exemptions with China.In response to Messi’s visa incident, some netizens questioned why entry to China should be so difficult. Some commented that the Chinese regime always says that it has friends all over the world—“but how come they only have visa exemptions with so few countries?”
Others asked, “Why can Taiwan (Republic of China) citizens go to so many places without visas, but mainland Chinese residents can’t?”
“It’s the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that is unwilling to sign visa exemptions with more countries,“ Heng told NTD News on June 12. ”They don’t want Chinese people to go to other countries easily and freely. It’s for them to further control Chinese people.”
In 2009 and 2010, the South Korean government proposed a reciprocal agreement to China that would allow citizens of the two countries to enter the others’ territories without a visa, but the CCP refused, stating that “the objective conditions are not ripe.”
