Originally Posted by rjh
Did you read this in the Sing Tao Daily? The backup I saw reported seems pretty flimsy--"unnamed offical..."
Since it's more of a tax than immigration control, it's not clear why the "permit" would be abolished as long as foreigners queue up to get into Tibet, especially now that the train connection makes getting there easier.
A few theories:
-they believe that the net benefit to the economy will be greater if the permit system is scrapped
-capacity to Tibet has increased by several thousand percent this year (with the advent of the train)
-permit enforcement on the train is seemingly challenging because it is often hard to tell foreigners apart from chinese