China’s gonna give you a hefty tax rise next year if you’re an expat on a housing allowance or with kids in school paid by your employer. Gonna be a huge bite for lots of expats.

Yeah I am clinging to my tax equalization contract so none of it directly impacts me except for the US and California clownery.

Anyway, looks like I need to start getting an NAT test twice per week in order to board a high speed train. Because of the Guangdong “cases”

The tax changes mean your allowances will be taxed at your marginal rate (probably 35% or 45% for most foreigners with decent jobs) along with the effective sealing of the border with no end in sight, is why I declined a new four-year contract in Shenzhen in March. It's very difficult to see what steps can and will be taken to improve the easing of border controls into and out of China for the foreseeable future. It's a shame because on many levels you can have a decent life in Shenzhen but right now it's like an open prison.

Not the same context, but being vaccinated and entering China may even hurt you.

From the New York Times on June 10th:



Furthermore:

Quote:

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Nurses took his blood twice a day and performed six throat swabs, four nasal swabs and two anal swabs daily, said

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I share GloballyServiced 's pessimism on China opening up soon.

That sounds like a tall tale because they don’t test for antibodies on arrival. Only pre departure before you get your green code clearance approval. And my boss just flew in a few weeks ago after testing positive for antibodies on the pre departure testing and selecting “yes” for vaccinated was sufficient for green code.

So it doesn’t make sense there would be any antibody surprises at arrival.

But with China you never know I suppose.

Assuming you’re a US citizen. I’m not privy to the specifics of my setup but understand everything from a high level.

We have a residence permit in China sponsored by our family office which operates in Beijing and Shanghai (despite being largely denominated in USD). I only need to pay myself some multiple of the average salary in Beijing (I don’t know what the average BJ salary is these days but my total Chinese ordinary income is less than $100k). In the grand scheme of things, that is a very trivial amount and can even be exempt. The rest of your compensation can be paid out in the US.

I agree that China has changed for the worse in many ways recently (especially in terms of lifestyle). However, I still believe Asia will continue to outpace the US in terms of economic growth for the foreseeable future. I would never live in China permanently but there is too much easy, lucrative business there to pass up. Ray Dalio published a free e-book on his view of the changing world order. Worth a read for anyone interested in the US (or even people indexing their wealth into US equities).

You're right, I didn't get any antibody tests after arriving in PVG either. But perhaps it is done based on country of arrival? Or perhaps someone else on his flight tested positive to PCR and he was classified as a close contact?

I’m just a drone in a very very straight laced company and all of my income is already USD. They pay all my taxes and expenses in China.

I 10000% agree with you that China is the greatest economic place to be on the planet I’m just starting to question things from an overall life quality plan standpoint. Not super relevant to the topic though, just sharing thoughts.

yeah who knows with PVG. When I arrived there last fall Oct 2020 they treated me like a POW. When I arrived in Guangzhou CAN in April 2021 they are very pleasant and kind throughout the process.

I didn't have any issues at PVG in Feb 2021, but I was flying from a low-risk country.

If you’re living and working full time in China then you’re supposed to be paying tax on your entire income, including the amount you’re paid in the USA. Of course this strategy you’re employing has been used for decades by expats but China is now trying to crack down on this. The chance to get caught is slim and presumably someone with a family office and someone who thinks $100k is a trivial amount of money has enough connections and coin to get out of any uncomfortable situations in the mainland. But it is a small risk you’re running if you’re indeed living in China full time.

Asia is definitely the future and China is awash in cash now with their SOEs and Investment firms looking to throw it around like crazy now. I’m still torn about staying though because life is getting harder and more expensive here and not being able to leave for the foreseeable future without a lengthy quarantine if let back in is really a bummer.

This article has no real content but this is the attitude that we are dealing with: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225983.shtml

Both parts of the first statement are false. The second statement is true, yes, no vaccine is perfect. The "huge risks" in the third statement are way overstated...
The problem with the mentality in the first statement is that if one really believes this, then vaccination is pointless.

I do not live in China full-time but I do have stay duration requirements in the country. AFAIK, my foreign income is not taxable.

IMO, peak Shanghai was 2016. The local government’s crackdowns have really made many facets of Shanghai life unbearable. I went through many apartment police raids In 2019 and I am completely clean.

I am still bullish on the country from a financial perspective (especially after reading Ray Dalio’s free book on the subject), but I would never willingly live there full time. I also think there has been a strong counter movement against foreigners in China culturally. The LBF idea is so pervasive in tier 1 cities these days (which is unfortunate for a country that desperately needs skilled immigration).

Not if you leave the country for 90 days every five years. As far as I know this get-out-jail-free card is still on the books and you will stay as a non-resident tax payer from China's point-of-view. Of course if your tax strategy elsewhere relies on you being a China resident then this doesn't work.

China is pursuing the Zero-Covid strategy currently. Once they have achieved sufficient vaccine coverage they may decide to abandon the strategy and instead switch to the coexistence strategy as employed in many countries. However, until that coverage is achieved, and until the rest of the world proves that coexistence is actually possible, then nothing will change on the borders front.

No country has shown that they can fully reopen their borders with vaccines alone yet. Even Israel still requires 14 days quarantine for all arrivals.

I’ll bite, what’s LBF?

Sorry, this has to be a joke... since when has China ever cared about what other countries do?

Um... the EU is doing this, rollout across member states varies.

This website contradicts itself (top says you don't have to quarantine and the bottom says that you can apply for an exception if vaccinated) but nevertheless 14 day quarantine is definitely not required for all arrivals. https://www.gov.il/en/Departments/Gu...chapterIndex=5

Sorry, I got hit by autocorrect. I meant LBH. This is a common term locals use for some expats in Asian cities that means “Loser Back Home”.

The default option is to quarantine for 14 days. You can reduce it to 10 by taking two extra Covid tests.

If you were vaccinated or infected in Israel (with the corresponding certificates), then you don't have to quarantine.

If you were vaccinated or infected outside of Israel, you still have to quarantine but you may be able to get out early (depending on the result) by taking an antibody test during quarantine.

I was just told my a Shenzhen local that you now need to have at least one shot of vaccine to be able to fly from SZX airport. I hope this is incorrect, but honestly it wouldn’t surprise me at this point.

some more details https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225950.shtml

global times is an extremely biased news source, will only post articles with mostly factual info

I view this as a slight positive for reopening the borders. It means they see the vaccines are working and want everyone to get them which, hopefully will lead to relaxed entry restrictions once a certain # of the population is vaccinated.

I just hope that whatever digital vaccine passport they roll out for domestic travel doesn’t forget about those of us without Chinese ID cards...

You guys normally are. Even us HRP holders aren't normally remembered.

SCMP is writing a series of articles about China (not) reopening

The situation doesn't look good
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/dipl...navirus-travel
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-e...reign-business

I don’t know if I agree with it being a good sign for international border. It seems like they’re just adding restrictions on unvaccinated rather than taking them away from vaccinated.

Im starting to be rather sketched out by it all.

Read the articles, let's see if I got it right...

• They are trying hard to get everyone vaccinated
• Public health "experts" that they interview for these articles are not supportive of border reopening even with vaccines
• No one knows what the Chinese government is going to do
• Expats in China are getting fed up and considering leaving

Hmmm, sounds like we have it all covered in this thread. :cool:
For the optimists out there (if there are any), the only thing that we can do is track the # of vaccine doses given and hope they miraculously change their mind someday.

As the magic 8 ball would say: “signs point to 2023”

It's the unfortunate but entirely foreseeable result of decoupling. There's a surprising number of people who thought decoupling from China means they won't have to deal with Chinese people and products, but their country will still be able to sell goods and send people into China.

The world doesn't work like that.

China will be in no rush whatsoever to reopen.

Same assumptions as before (72.9% of population = 1.02b people, everything 2 shot, required doses = 2.04b).
Current rate is holding constant at 20m doses/day.

About 505m people are fully vaccinated right now (1010m / 2)

At the current rate (10m people/day), that gives us (1020m-505m)/10 = 52 days or 10 August 2021 (exactly the same as last time).

Looks like we are peaking with the rate and a lot of the major cities have high percentages of people vaccinated so would expect the rate to stay stable or slow over time.

Shenzhen new policy need test 48 hr to enter/exit. Applies to everyone, no mention of what happens if one has a vaccine.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-19/china-s-shenzhen-airport-tightens-curbs-after-variant-covid-case

Sources linked in article (chinese)
http://wjw.sz.gov.cn/yqxx/content/post_8874301.html
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/gRnCfIJPb-8t1UpeQ9nZRw

No concessions for vaccine takers in our reports of Shenzhen measures either.

I think the general idea with vaccines in China is that they stop serious illness/collapse of the hospital system - they’re not depended upon to prevent outbreaks (sterilising).

“深圳因應早前出現的確診病例感染Delta變種病毒，由今日起所有從任何交通站，包括火車站及機場等離開 深圳出省人士，必須出示健康碼綠碼以及48小時內的核酸檢測陰性證明，東莞亦採取同樣的出省限 制措施。”

http://news.now.com/home/internation...42&refer=Share

I agree that this seems to be the general idea.

If true, though, the “72.9% vaccinated to hit herd immunity” is meaningless. Really it’s a question of “What percentage of people without a vaccine are we ok with having the potential to get seriously ill from Covid?” Obviously vaccine distribution only gets harder once the big cities are covered.

If US and EU reopening goes smoothly, this will put the most pressure on reopening. Don’t think any other factor matters

I think in the end the crux of the matter is what will happen in the US and Europe this winter. If there is no big surge then China might reconsider its strategy. If there is then all bets are off.

In the mean time China is maximising its vaccine coverage so that should this be proven to work then at least they'll be in a position to pivot. But until they decide to pivot then they will still be using the Zero-Covid strategy.

I don't think there's conclusive evidence whether covid is seasonal or not. More important is that a large portion of the US (NY, CA, etc) is living like it's 2019. If there is a spike it will happen immediately.

If that 72.9% was evenly distributed (and is an accurate estimate), I would disagree with you because if R0 falls below 1, the virus should disappear. However, since the regional distribution presumably has a high standard deviation, I'm inclined to agree because we are still permitted to roam freely here (with some exceptions like Shenzhen). Of course, China could take all sorts of steps to effectively make vaccinations mandatory. That Y100/dose price tag might be cost prohibitive in poorer areas though (e.g. if the choice between visiting a fancy shopping all and feeding your family, many would opt for the latter).

AFAIK the 100rmb/jab price is the foreigner price. Chinese citizens get it for free.

And I continue to stand by my prediction of nothing opening up for at least a year if not more.

I suppose that makes sense; we can afford it, and they don't really seem to want us here anyway.

People are really having meltdowns in Guangdong now. Constantly talking about which area is “safe”

Is there any reason to believe I should get a Chinese vaccine before leaving back to the states in August? I’ll be applying for HDC to return to China again at the end of august or early Sep.

And is there any kind of working list of approved flights into China? Trying to strategize a bit but it’s difficult to know which cities are even a possibility to depart from.

I know that AA, DL, MU, and UA all fly from PVG. I went with AA and bought a hotel in DFW for the overnight layover. I don't know about CAN and PEK options.