Originally Posted by moondog

You can transit in Beijing without a visa; we refer to this policy as Transit Without Visa, and have an enormous thread on the topic
Throwing away $300 seems silly to me because the misconnection risk also applies at all other airports that connect SFO with BOM
In the event you get stuck in Beijing for a night, you can enjoy it; it's not nearly as cool as it was 10 years ago, but it's still a nice place to visit