Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing Thai Immigration specifically in the context of Chinese looking to come into Thailand. Apparently, there has been a lot going on with respect to this especially in the past roughly 7 - 10 days as China is sort of reopening and there a little bit of, I don't know how you want to put it, like readjustment with respect to reopening for Chinese. Thailand's policies toward these folks, like how all this is working.

Now as the title suggests, we discussed the open door policy, always a little bit tricky to discuss Open Door policies when discussing China. Again if you go back into history that has far different connotations than what it currently means in the context of this video. What I am talking about here is Thai Immigration has had overall kind of an "open door" policy. They have been trying to encourage people to come in for various reasons the biggest one being foreign exchange derived from tourism. There is no doubt that that is a substantial factor in Thai Immigration policy, in Thai Policy generally with regard to foreign travellers. However, that said that, that "open door" policy if you will, it is not sort of without its own terms, without its own conditions which brings me to this recent article from the Pattaya Mail, that is pattayamail.com, the article is titled: Visa options for Chinese visitors to Thailand shrink rapidly. I am going to quote a small excerpt here I urge those who are watching this video go check out that article in detail, gain some further insight. There is a lot of information in there, it is quite insightful. Quoting directly: "The outstanding question now is how far Thailand's Open Door Immigration policy to boost foreign arrivals in the post-Covid world will be sourly affected by the activities of Chinese Mafias in Thai cities." 

What they are talking about overall throughout the rest of this article is that Immigration options for a number of Chinese Nationals have been massively clamped down upon most notably Thai Education Visas and Volunteer Visas were apparently, allegedly, whatever you want to call it being utilized by primarily Chinese Nationals to maintain longer term status here in Thailand without an actual good reason. Essentially it was Immigration fraud is what Thai Immigration seems to be concerned about. 

Now will this impact the overall sort of policy right now especially here during High season to get in as many tourists as we can to bump up the tourist numbers? I don't think that this will have a major impact in the immediate term. I think it might have some impact on Chinese Nationals but those other nations that have been travelling to Thailand now for some weeks and months for just acting as standard tourists, I don't think this is going to have an impact on those folks a great deal. If anything I think they will probably keep coming and going and not even notice that anything has happened. Now once we get outside of high season, out into the first quarter of 2023, yeah I can see maybe where we are going to see some new Immigration policies coming down the pike that could have tremendous implications for Thai Immigration in the coming months and even into the possibly unforeseeable future.