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 Almost a quarter more domestic Chinese tourism trips have been made during this year's Lunar New Year holiday, while cross-border travel more than doubled in the first six days of the week-long break following the end of strict COVID-19 curbs.

A total of 308 million tourism trips within China have been made during the current holiday period, up 23.1% from 2022's Lunar New Year break and marking a recovery to 88.6% of the number in 2019, data from the culture and tourism ministry showed on Friday.

China in December began dismantling its stringent zero-COVID measures after nearly three years that saw intermittent citywide lockdowns, slower economic growth and a disrupted tourism and hospitality sector.

Revenue generated from domestic tourism during this year's holiday stands at 375.84 billion yuan ($55.41 billion), or 73.1% of that in 2019, according to the tourism ministry data.

From Jan. 21 to Jan. 26, the first six days of the holiday, a total of 2.39 million trips were made out of and into China, up 123.9% compared with the Jan. 31 to Feb. 5 period last year, the National Immigration Administration (NIA) said on Friday, citing data on trips made by various means of transport.

Authorities in early January ended a requirement that inbound travellers had to undergo hotel quarantine upon arrival, a policy that had crippled international travel.

Despite the jump, international travel over the holiday period has yet to rebound to pre-COVID levels.

During the Lunar New Year holiday in 2019, a total of 12.53 million cross-border trips were made, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Data from the Ctrip travel company showed domestic and international travel orders on its platform for the Lunar New Year holiday both increased to a three-year peak in 2023, with four times as many overall tourism orders this year as last year. (reuters)

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Friday that a return to deflation in the world's third-largest economy cannot be ruled out, because domestic demand remains weak.

The comment came hours after data showed Tokyo's consumer inflation, a leading indicator of Japanese price trends, hit a 42-year high in January, keeping the central bank under pressure to phase out its easy monetary policy.

However, Kishida told a session of the upper house of parliament that inflation was being driven by high global raw material prices and a weak yen, not by strong domestic demand.

Asked by an opposition lawmaker if the Japanese economy has fully exited from years of deflation, Kishida said: "the state of non-deflation is going on at the moment, but it has not reached a stage where we can judge that the return (to deflation) is unlikely."

The Bank of Japan (BOJ) surprised financial markets last month with a decision to allow 10-year bond yields to move in a slightly wider range at just above or below zero, prompting speculation it was preparing the ground for a gradual exit from its super-loose policy.

But Kishida described the move as an operational tweak to smooth the impact of monetary easing, which is distorting the country's bond markets. The BOJ did not make further changes at its mid-January meeting.

Policymakers are hoping that wage increases this spring will cushion higher living costs and boost consumer spending.

"The government and the BOJ have agreed to closely cooperate towards economic growth in tandem with structural wage hikes and the sustainable, stable achievement of the inflation target," Kishida said, reiterating his previous remarks.

He also refrained from commenting on whether there would be a revision to a joint government and BOJ statement on economic policy that has mandated policymakers to fight deflation since 2013, saying that a new BOJ governor has not yet been chosen.

Kishida on Sunday said he would nominate the next BOJ leader next month before the incumbent Haruhiko Kuroda's second five-year term expires on April 8. (Reuters)

A security assessment by Indian police in the Himalayan region of Ladakh says there could be more clashes between Indian and Chinese troops along their contested frontier there as Beijing ramps up military infrastructure in the region.

At least 24 soldiers were killed when the armies of the Asian giants clashed in Ladakh, in the western Himalayas, in 2020 but tensions eased after military and diplomatic talks. A fresh clash erupted between the two sides in the eastern Himalayas in December but there were no deaths.

The assessment is part of a new, confidential research paper by the Ladakh Police that was submitted at a conference of top police officers held from January 20 to 22 and has been reviewed by Reuters.

The report said the assessment was based on intelligence gathered by local police in the border areas and the pattern of India-China military tensions over the years.

The Indian army did not respond to a request for comment but the assessment assumes significance as it was submitted at a conference attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. India's defence and foreign ministries also did not respond to requests for comment.

The Chinese foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

"Given the domestic compulsions ... in China and their economic interests in the region, the PLA would continue to build up its military infrastructure and skirmishes would also get frequent which may or may not follow a pattern,” the paper said, referring to China's People’s Liberation Army.

“If we analyse the pattern of skirmishes and tensions, the intensity has increased since 2013-2014 with an interval of every 2-3 years,” it said.

“With the massive infrastructure build up by PLA on Chinese side both the armies are testing each other’s reaction, strength of artillery and infantry mobilization time”.

The report also said India has been slowly losing ground to China in Ladakh as the border has been pushed inside Indian territory through the creation of buffer zones.

India and China share a 3,500 km (2,100 miles) border that has been disputed since the 1950s. The two sides went to war over it in 1962. (Reuters)

Myanmar's ruling junta on Friday announced tough requirements for parties to contest an election this year, including a huge increase in their membership, a move that could sideline the military's opponents and cement its grip on politics.

Myanmar's top generals led a coup in February 2021 after five years of tense power-sharing under a quasi-civilian political system that was created by the military, which led to a decade of unprecedented reform.

The country has been in chaos since the putsch, with a resistance movement fighting the military on multiple fronts after a bloody crackdown on opponents that saw Western sanctions re-imposed.

The military has pledged to hold an election in August this year. An announcement in Friday's state media said parties intending to compete nationally must have at least 100,000 members, up from 1,000 previously, and commit to running in the election in the next 60 days or be de-registered as a party.

The rules favour the Union Solidarity and Development Party, a military proxy stacked with former generals, which was trounced by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party in 2015 and 2020 elections.

The NLD was decimated by the coup, with thousands of its members arrested or jailed, including Suu Kyi, and many more in hiding.

Richard Horsey, senior adviser to the International Crisis Group, who was based in Myanmar for 15 years, said the rules aimed to restore a political system the military can control.

"Parties are going to be either too scared, offended at the sham that the election is, or it will just be too expensive for them to mount a nationwide campaign in that kind of environment. Who would fund a political party right now?" he said.

"This whole exercise is something to perpetuate military rule. It's a piece of theatre. It doesn't have to work, because they've decided what the outcome will be."

The junta says it is committed to democracy and seized power because of unaddressed violations in a 2020 election won in a landslide by the ruling NLD.

The NLD in November described the election as "phoney" and said it would not acknowledge it. The election has also been dismissed as a sham by Western governments. (Reuters)