Originally Posted by
moondog
1. HEL-PVG-HEL is not transit
2. If you travel on a passport from Japan or ~4 more countries, you don't need a visa for short trips
3. TWOV was implemented in order to give people incentive to transit in China (instead of Japan/Korea/Singapore)
1. I'm quite aware of that
2. It would take quite a bit of a work to make me Japanese citizen
(btw I think it's more countries - e.g I have collegues with Serbian and Bosnian passports, they are also visa free)
3. Might be, but my totally uneducated guess would be that the majority uses TWOV as a way to visit China
sans visa. And if you think about it - 144 hrs are basically a week, especially as the hours start ticking at 0:00 after the day of arrival. Who is "transiting" for a week? Clearly visa-free travel for all practical considerations, but for whatever reasons, keeping up the "transit" charade.