Originally Posted by
jiejie
2) Remembering to carry one's passport for purchases...and collect the ID's for others that you will be purchasing at the same time. Presumably there will be preboarding or on-board checks of tickets vs ID, which means one will have to travel on these trains with passport...which up until now wasn't necessary (and useful if you needed to travel while your passport was at an Embassy getting a visa put in, and were shut out of the skies). I'm sure a few foreign residents have alternative acceptable ID's, but for most foreigners, it's going to be the passport.
Either you've been very lucky with your travel within China (or are Chinese) but I've been passport checked on a waypoint check in a fairly developed area. (Highway Jiangsu-Shanghai)
Learned from the lesson to always keep my passport with me, as it's law for foreigners to have their passport with them at all times as I've learned. (They didn't made up that rule, checked later, it is that way..) So at least this point shouldn't really be any difference to how you should have fared before.