Originally Posted by
akl_cat
There is a poorly-presented but somewhat informative FAQ page on the Chinese Consulate in Auckland's site:
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions?on Visa-free Policy to?Citizens?of New Zealand and Other Countries
EDIT: It is the same FAQ as the one you shared from the Aussie site, just a blanket replacement of all references of AUS to NZL.
And to answer your question, according to the FAQ yes you can enter China using this scheme via any land/sea/air border post opening to foreigners, which would include the West Kowloon high speed rail station. Back in the pre-COVID days I had a long layover in HKG and out of sheer curiosity took a joyride on the high speed train to Shenzhen, and had no problem crossing that border with no Chinese visa but just an ABTC. I highly suspect the experience under this visa-free scheme would be similar.
I have crossed at Lo Wu a few times applying for a SEZ on arrival but the time taken to process this varies wildly. In HK at West Kowloon station there are no immigration staff to actually process any visas or paperwork so you need to actually have a Chinese visa or ABTC. It was for this reason I wondered about whether the new visa free travel would work from here.
I have a couple of suppliers in Shenzhen I've visited a number times and really should get around to applying for an ABTC regardless of this visa announcement. I was in HK last month and didn't go up to Shenzhen because I didn't have time to deal with the random wait times wait for a SEZ but being able to use the high speed rail becomes a game changer.