I have US Passport, and the NH check-in agent every time checks to make sure, in detail, that I have a valid Chinese Visa. For the past few years, I have 'Resident Permit for Foreigner' which on occasion confuses the NH agents.

Once time was checkin at IAD, for flight IAD-NRT-PEK, and they seemed perplexed by the resident permit, which is for all purposes a chinese green card. Said they had never seen it before, they even asked if they could make a copy for refrence for them to have. Seemed bizarre for me, as it's somewhat common for anyone who has a chinese work or student visa has the resident card in the passport compared to just the normal visa.