China - Border control when transiting international to domestic.

On this visit to China I will be bringing 6 bottles of a very good red wine packed into my checked luggage. There are three of us travelling together and I believe that the allowable duty free limit is two bottles per person. As our luggage is checked through how does border control carry out customs checks on this luggage? Are there likely to be any hassles with this is they for example scan the bag and notice the 6 bottles?
I have been told that the duty on alcohol is quite high and don't want to have pay extra.

I have only ever done this on journeys back to Australia where I have packed for example double the amount of cigarettes into my bag and just told customs that they were shared between me and my partner as our luggage is shared.

Maybe they'll scan, maybe they won't. Good chance that even if they do and question you, you can talk your way out of duty with the 6 bottles-between-3 people-traveling gambit. It's a risk I'd certainly be willing to take. Usually they are lenient with incoming foreigners. At PEK Customs exit after intl baggage claim, there is an xray machine which passengers are randomly asked to put their stuff through. Usually they let the foreigners pass through without stopping, and select some of the Chinese (especially those with boxes) to examine.

Seems they have a fair amount of search dogs,
but that's most probably for fruit, veg, meats...not wine.

Was given a box of binlang as a gift in Taipei.
I was told its ok to travel with it to China...didn't think so
and set it outside for someone to pick up.

Sure enough at PVG they had dogs at the baggage carousel,
would have definately got that and binlang might even be an illegal
drug in China.

But if you catch your bag as it comes out of the wall at PVG you can
exit quick and get away from fido who is roaming up and down the aisles.

Chinese Fido's aren't on duty all the time. And they won't alert on wine.

Transited international to domestic at Guangzhou yesterday. Our bags were checked through but we were pulled aside with about a 20-30 others on our flight by customs and my passport was taken by an official. We sat for about 15mins while our bags were taken of a separate carousel and they loaded them on trolleys took them to what I assume was a screening machine. They then came back, gave me my passport and transported us in two large golf carts to our domestic flight security check in area. I had as mention earlier 6 bottles of wine plus plenty of cheese, yogurt, fruit etc. Anyway thanks for all the advice and just wanted to let others know that we had no real problems.

Dairy is not allowed. I declared it once at the HK-SZ boarder and the guard told me not to worry. Another time I took a HK flight with even more diary and it was all taken away from me. (The only international flights at this airport was to HK). I wish law enforcement was more consistent. Wouldn't have spent the money the second time. The first time I forgot I had food in my suitcase when I was leaving HK.

My assumption the second time was they weren't as strict on dairy from HK.

I had as mention earlier 6 bottles of wine plus plenty of cheese, yogurt, fruit etc. Anyway thanks for all the advice and just wanted to let others know that we had no real problems.

Fruit is a no-no to bring into China, if Customs finds they can confiscate. Not sure why you'd want to bring fruit from Australia (?) to southern China anyway--you can get more and better and cheaper at any Chinese market or supermarket. :confused:

You can get Australian fruit in Hong Kong. There is a supermarket working with the AU government in TST in the MTR station building.