Originally Posted by
jiejie
Fallback position with them is to insist that you want to take advantage of the legal transit without visa, and go into the city. They can provide you with a pass or at least an escort to get you to and through Immigration. Normally you shouldn't need this at any other Chinese airport, but CAN does it's own thing and we don't have enough reports yet to determine whether they've abandoned their attempts to keep transitees without visas in the terminal.
And Welcome to FlyerTalk!
My experience in December - flying J on CZ - was that a CZ agent met me on deplaning in CAN from the LAX flight with information about my onward connection (12 hours later). They escorted me and a small group of other J passengers to the arrival hall and I explained to the CZ agent that I wanted to do the TWOV so I could leave the airport and go into the city. They handled the transit pax first (those with tight connections) then they helped me interface with the immigration folks. It did require a bit of a wait but I was set free without much drama. The presence of a CZ agent helped immensely. They were exceptionally helpful and attentive.
Flying in Y might be a different story. Onward boarding pass was needed to process the paperwork.