The amount of tuition fees China earns from overseas students is vastly dwarfed by the amount of fees Chinese students spend overseas.

Besides they don't even care about the outbound tuition fees, it's just loose change in the grand scheme of things.

I suppose you're right. I know a lot of Chinese universities are able to soak foreign students for 2-3x as much money as locals, but there's no way they could bridge the gap between local tuition and ~$45k (typical US figure) and still attract students.

Are you moved by the diversity argument? IMO, it's one of the main areas in which universities outside of China are way ahead, and I'm pretty sure this is common knowledge within the upper ranks of the Party. How do you think they feel when their own children demand to go to school abroad because they think it is better?

Are you saying you think Xi Jinping is hoping for more foreigners at Chinese universities so that they can mingle and share ideas with the local Chinese students?

I know he's not interested in the mingling part, but I'm sure he would prefer it if the best students stayed in China. For some reason, Japan and Korea don't have this brain drain problem to nearly the same extent, in spite of the fact that their universities are also homogenous.

Chinese universities still can't issue student visas for international students two years later. Medical students who are enrolled at Chinese universities, for example, were kicked out in March 2020 and are still forced to learn online at 2am in their home country.

Those students would definitely go through the PU letter, quarantine rigmarole if they could. But they can't. It's clear that businesspeople are prioritized more highly, and international students are just as useless as tourists.

Absolutely NOT.

The Emperor wants foreigners OUT.

He feels safer that way.

And he wants to minimize friendship and of course relationships with foreigners from here on. Likely medal winners excepted.

(Tutoring for profit is banned. English learning materials are off the shelves. Very soon rarely anybody can pass TOEFL and IE!TS anyway.)

The (primary) stated rationale behind these policies is to reduce the opportunity gap. This sort of makes sense to me; children from poorer families/villages are at a competitive disadvantage as long as wealthy parents are able to devote bottomless resources to their own offspring. I would think test prep is somewhat shielded because there are many good online options, some of which are free or close to free.

However, I have a hard time believing that X and company are truly in favor of isolation. All of those guys have seen past examples, including their own, of this, and it never produces favorable results. I will stop here because I don't want this thread to get moved to the dark side, especially since it's pretty much our only active thread in this subforum.

It's not just a matter of resources, but the competition isn't a good thing for the students. (It isn't here, either.)

I think it's more a matter of physical isolation, not economic isolation.

The only isolation is the banning of foreign nationals entering China. There is very little effort in enforcing a ban on outbound travel by Chinese nationals. Students are still lining up in droves at the Shanghai US Consulate.
Even Taiwan citizens can travel freely in and out of China, of course if they are doing so between China and Taiwan then that means 35 days of quarantine.

At least they're included in the Mainland-Macau travel bubble. I'm not a big fan of Macau, but I probably would pop down there if the privilege was extended to all foreigners.

You and me both man. Terrible they won’t open this up to us lao wai.

You should speak to a Chinese person who has tried to renew their passport in the past year.

Macau? There is nothing to do except going to casino and SPA......

As I intimated, Macau is not my favorite place, but I find it to be cleaner than most Chinese cities, there are interesting food options, and it is pretty good for hiking. Pre-Covid, getting to/from there was insanely convenient (with eChannel)...i.e. more convenient than SZX because the airport is manageable and well located. [MENTION=17434]YariGuy[/MENTION] told me that SHA-MFM flights don't exist at present (need to schlep to PVG), so that puts a chink in the armor of the convenience argument, but I'd be willing to endure if it became an option for me.

Well let me tell you as someone who's gone to Macau (from Shanghai) 3 times (with a 4th trip booked) in the last year:

The casinos suck (sticking to 500 and 1000 table minimums despite nobody gambling, with almost 100% baccarat and no poker/craps/blackjack), and the SPAs are gone.

What there IS though is good food, good shopping, and good hiking. And when I re-enter Shanghai I use my US passport and get a stamp which is nice. Getting a PCR test and going to Pudong is worth it to me.

Well said. Macau is more than just casinos and SPAs. I have been to Macau many times and hardly ever step into a casino and my trips were usually quite interesting and not boring at all.

I don't want to answer for hm, but I can safely say that US citizenship does not permit people to go to/from Macau without quarantine.

No, foreigners aren’t allowed to do this, even if they have a residence permit or PR on the mainland.

Chinese citizens, HK/Macau return permit holders and Taiwan return permit holders are allowed.

Foreign nationals aren't allowed to enter Macau without an exemption. If they can obtain an exemption however, they would be able to enter Macau from China without quarantine.
Exemptions are issued for reasons such as having a spouse who is resident in Macau.
For the purposes of entering Macau, holders of HK/Taiwan passports are considered to be Chinese nationals.

Looks like there's been a successful case of a HK transit from Indonesia despite the hard firewall in HKG:

病例3为印度尼西亚籍，在印度尼西亚生活，自印度尼西亚出发，经香港转机，于2022年1月28日抵达上海浦东国 际机场，入关后即被集中隔离观察，其间出现症状。综合流行病学史、临床症状、实验室检测和影像学检查结果等 ，诊断为确诊病例。

An Indonesian national who lives in Indonesia departed Indonesia, transited HK and arrived in PVG on 2022/01/28.

Invitations from casinos don't clear the bar for those of us who aren't whales.:D

Following is the text of an email I sent to my business partner, who has been on a buying spree for overpriced airplane tickets:Whenever I've advised you via WeChat to wait on buying any US-China or vv tickets, I've refrained from explaining the mechanics because it's a little complicated.

But, let me try:

1. Every airline with prior authority to fly US-China is permitted 4 slot pairs per week

2. UA uses all four of its slots for SFO-PVG, and MU uses all four of its slots for PVG-JFK

3. The other players split their slots between two routes and/or don't use all four

4. When any specific flight (e.g. UA 857 Thursday departure) brings in 5-10 Covid positives, it is hit with a 2-week suspension. If the number is 10 or more cases, it gets a 4-week suspension. They can negotiate the suspensions down by only flying at 40% capacity, and sometimes they take this deal

5. The penalty on Thursday 857 only applies to that specific flight (i.e. the other 3 days aren't affected)

6. Because Omicron is much more contagious than previous variants, AA, UA, and DL lost almost all of their flights between last week and late February

7. The Chinese airlines fared a little better with respect to the Chinese rules (which, honestly are equal), but the US DOT cried foul and handed out penalties to Chinese airlines on a one-for-one basis (their logic is pretty solid, as well)

8. The upshot of this is that there are VERY FEW flights in either direction until late February, so prices are at all-time highs, AND there is no guarantee whether your chosen flight will actually take place (e.g. if a Saturday 857 screws up and you are booked on the following Saturday, they will put you on Thursday 857 if they have seats; good luck if Thursday 857 is limited to 40%)

9. This stuff is really hard to manage from the airlines' POV. They are reluctant to sell tickets that they might not be able to honor

10. Those $5500 lowest fares are in place until September based on the status quo holding (i.e. basically 3-4 flights per month, per airline, and contracts that they are unable to fulfill)

11. I could be mistaken, but I think it's simply impossible for the situation to become any worse than it is now

12. You see, the Chinese airlines are owned by the government, and they are losing boatloads of money by relegating their big planes to PEK-SHA hops. Then, you have AA sitting on the sidelines for now; they will restart DFW-PVG in a New York minute if they can get some guarantees of operational security

13. So, we're looking at 3,000 seats per month now in each direction v 50,000 seats per month (also in each direction) after things are smoothed out

14. The current crisis is due to a combination of the Olympics and Omicron, more so the latter

15. I predict that the Chinese will adjust all policies in order to cope with Omicron

16. Assuming #15 pans out, airfares will drop a lot

Thanks moondog for that write-up. :tu:
An unanswered question has been:
What is the suspension for, exactly? The flight itself or 'just' the carrying of pax?
I.e.: for 'suspended' US carriers' flights, does the plane still fly with cargo but without pax USA-China, and is allowed to return China-USA with pax?

I'm not certain about this, but I believe the suspensions only apply to flights coming to China. If true, that means penalized airlines might be able to do cargo only on the way over. The thing is, fares ex-China are A LOT cheaper than fares departing China because we aren't limited to a tiny number of "direct" options. If third-country transits were permitted, these economics would change in a heartbeat. $400 tickets still wouldn't be in the cards, but SFO-PVG would not command $5500 any more.

It also would mean, that you could book the flights as a pax on the way back China-USA.
Wonder how we could get a definite answer on this???

Ask GloballyServiced when he makes his escape from the Middle Kingdom. ;)

Thus far, whenever 857 has been canceled, there hasn't been an airplane in Shanghai to offer 858. So, even if they could do it, they are not doing it.

Again, leaving is cheap and easy, by comparison.

More digging.....according to FlightAware and United they are:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UAL858

And from UA (a click on WHERE'S THIS AIRCRAFT COMING FROM yields an error message):


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d4d23b09e1.jpg

United is flying this empty over and carrying pax back to the USA.

Yep, I have now come to the same conclusion (see my post before this one).
And EMPTY potentially means sans passengers, but WITH cargo.

So, in conclusion; a suspension and these rules from China, isn't a suspension of the airplane's flight itself, but merely a suspension of that aircraft carrying passengers.

With the new restrictions/requirements to passengers needing to sel-quarantine and testings starting 7 days before departure at the point of flight departing city, and then now extending the isolated quarantine period to 21-day upon landing in Shanghai (more at final destination such as Beijing), I wonder why flying to China even for work.

I have done the sel-isolation three times now, including last month. It is getting harder to stomach the process.
I left my home in DC on Jan 6 for SFO and spent more three days there to get all the tests done before flying out on Jan 9. Three weeks of isolation in Shanghai and another week in Bejing with new testing requirements and home isolation, I just return to the office today (Feb 7)... over a month since I began the trip!
Now I have to plan to go back to the US in less than 4 weeks for another work related trip, I am already dreading it....

Well, congrats on finally being at work I guess! :)
So, what was that 3rd week like in Shanghai in the end? You call it isolated, which is worrisome.
Adding some 4 days at city of departure & changing the third week in Shanghai from 'free' to 'isolated' is concerning!

Not accurate

Ive been checking flight status of 858 for the past 3 weeks and it’s been on. I presume cargo from SFO ($$$).

The 3rd round of this is what did me in. It’s gotten worse every time. The first two were “passable” but the third I was just wondering what I was doing with my life.

Not coming back again until these policies are gone. That may never happen.

Unless you have a major ability to make a huge income in a short time frame in China that you cannot make outside of China, I don’t see how you can continue selling yourself on this way of life.

Not to mention that life within China has become incredibly redundant and boring. Domestic travel in China is a complete nightmare and you run a serious risk of getting another quarantine under your belt just for going to the wrong place at the wrong time. I now know of 3 people that are sitting in a centralized lockdown (14 day sentence) as I type this because they traveled over CNY and someone was a “close contact.” So life in China is basically a series of alcohol abuse and over eating in your local metropolis.

Can anyone confirm if Chinese nationals are allowed to take any direct flight they choose back to China? For example, a Chinese national could fly direct from one of the European spots, Thailand, USA, whatever as long as they can get to that said destination and take the appropriate testing for the days before the flight?

This comment is extremely accurate for myself and my foreign friends in Shanghai. It was fun in 2020 and 2021 but "rinse and repeat" every weekend is starting to wear on me.

I attempted to explain this to YuropFlyer (who is extremely pro-China and longs for the glory days) during the holiday. Part of it is that we've aged out of places like Bar Rouge and Park 1997, but those venues don't even exist. Maybe Beijing isn't completely dead for the college kids, but I have my doubts (e.g. the gentrification of SLT was a travesty; all of us liked cheap and dirty).

My third week was at Hyatt House near Hongqiao airport. Because my reservation was made before Jan 17 (before the new requirements only selected hotels can take +7 guests), the local district and Hyatt House honored my reservation, but the hotel has stopped taking +7 reservations after Jan 17. My stay was exclusively inside the hotel room and limited time in the lobby area to collect my food delvieries. I could not leave the hotel. Hotel doesn't provide food but I can order room services. No daily cleaning and I can request for clean towls and water, which delivered using the robots. I could not go anywhere outside because the health code was yellow, so if I did leave the hotel, I cannot get back in because the code was not green.

I heard other hotels are more restrict on the +7 stay, which is exactly the same as the previous 14-day isolated stay. At least I can go down to the lobby to collect my food deliveries. We had a Wechat chatroom for the Jan 9 UA passengers. Some of them got really bad deals when they arrived at their destinations. They were put into less desirable places for isolated quarantine for up to another 14-days.