Then how are Chinese still going on international biz trips? I know they are because my girlfriend as well as several coworkers are doing so. I’m just not sure if they have options of where to fly back from, that was the point. If we tacked on a vacation.

It is pure fantasy. The moondog bot occasionally glitches back to 2010.

The precise rules are determined by each individual diplomatic mission. In general, allowance is made for cases where the traveller directly flew from China and is then returning to China. If you have a specific destination in mind, the best course of action is to contact the embassy in that country and find out exactly what they will and will not allow.

Shoot. Was hoping Chinese could now fly back home without the same concerns as foreigners.

https://archive.fo/IdH0l FT: Illegal border crossings push Hong Kong Covid outbreak into China

If the HK fifth wave outbreak was actually caused by a couple people escaping quarantine, this house of cards is about to fall soon.

It’s insane that these people are so scared of possibly catching Covid that they are willing to risk arrest and punishment by escaping into Mainland China. This is partly the fault of the Chinese government who has pushed the “Covid = Deadliest Disease Ever” line on their citizens from about Feb 2020 until now.

It's kind of ironic because since some of them have COVID and are bringing it into the mainland, they're effectively making the situation worse for everyone else. It's sort of like people who fly home anyway even if they're COVID positive (i.e. in the COVID forum), selfishness overrides everything else.

Some of the statements in this article are interesting: https://time.com/6147924/china-pfizer-covid-19-pill/, I am still optimistic that China wants to move towards reopening. Now they have a bunch of convenient scapegoats:

1. Cathay Pacific caused the HK 5th wave because their crew escaped quarantine
2. HK officials are too westernized and don't believe in the mainland COVID measures (e.g. full lockdown) so it spreading in HK is their fault
3. COVID gets into China because people are running away from HK, of course these are all HKers and not mainlanders, we did our best but that's all we could do

1 and 2 are already being pushed in the media

Those illegal immigrants were Mainland residents to start off with:

廣東增21宗輸入新冠確診半數來自香港　珠海出發往北京航班全部取消
https://news.now.com/home/internatio...69&refer=Share

http://cablenews.i-cable.com/ci/news...=1645208184196

This is HK news. The outbreak in Hong Kong is barely being reported on in Mainland news. For example Xi’s remarks Wednesday for HK to get its act together were published in pro-BJ HK news but not at all in Mainland media.

Thats what I would expect. Only the Mainlanders are so deathly afraid of catching Covid that they are willing to risk illegally crossing the border to “safety”.

To be fair I read another Bloomberg article where thousands of Mainlanders with HK residency are crossing over land the permitted way and doing quarantine: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...utbreak-widens

It's more likely than not that Hong Kong has a full lockdown in the near future. COVID concerns aside Hong Kong wouldn't be that much fun to live in right now (restaurants closed at 6pm etc), I don't really blame people for leaving

That article is (sort of) paywalled, but I get the gist of it. percysmith drinks are on me next time we meet up at the Mexican place.

Legal, quotaed travel back to the Mainland is no surprise. moondog remember I asked offline - is the HK border the only border crossing where an arrival (into the Mainland) has to arrange a quarantine hotel in advance? This doesn't seem necessary for international arrivals.

Let them have their way. They won't be satisfied until we do. Ignore the fact we do not have 城管, nor a health code system linked to the payment system, or true resident registration. So we'll end up with lockdown for weeks and weeks on end - not even allowed to go out for essentials like Melbourne.

A flood of negative social media of starving families and encounters with the Police less in intensity but more in frequency than 2019.
Oh, then they'll cut off our data pipelines to the rest of the world. But then, lots of us will still have satcoms.

A bunch of test workers and delivery and logistics workers will have to come to Hong Kong (supplemented by local workforce, this will effectively be running a nationalised Deliveroo) to carry this out.
Housing will be have to be found for them, this will be the biggest invasion since 1941.
We'll get a hukou registration system before the end of it. It may be kept on after the pandemic.

I don't want to engage in hyperbole - such as cauterising the SAR - but these are the ways I think they think they can return HKSAR back to Covid Zero. They aren't exactly killing the patient to do it, but they will be irreversibly changing the DNA of the SAR in their attempts to get to their goals. They started with ELAB and the NSL anyway.

Honestly, isn't that a good idea? Setting up a proper immigration policy that attracts those willing to work, but also give them a way for it (past-covid) that might eventually even lead to citizenship (Japan, for example, is doing this totally wrong, and thus failing, despite urgent need for it) after 10-15 years if having a proper "work and stay history".

Pretty much what Switzerland and other developed countries do (and we're among the countries receiving the most legal immigration world-wide, so I guess it's kinda working..)

Attracting talents, rather than dodgy "English teachers", and giving them a long-term perspective, should be the way forward.

I don’t disagree with you in theory but returning to covid zero is pretty much impossible at this point. They would have to have done these measures this week, every day they don’t do this it spirals out of control more. Going back to “covid zero” after you have 30000 cases per day (which will happen soon enough) is pointless.

Let us not forget that HK had actual covid zero for months and the mainland still did not open the border. Don’t even know what the point is anymore

This is veering off topic but China doesn’t care at all about foreigners working there and COVID has strengthened this point. The foreigner green card one can get in China is still pretty useless. They also don’t want normal people gaining Chinese citizenship, especially with the law against dual citizenship* still in place.

* at the risk of this devolving into a political discussion I’ll leave it there.

1. Don't forget they have the ability to make us die while they're trying.

2. Compliance with national policy is an obligation, doesn't mean we will necessarily get any benefits at the end of it.

Not according to “our” Chief Secretary Lee - Zero is still the goal ???? i-CABLE - ???????????????????????????

Meanwhile Rachel Chan is vowing more distancing measures, so lockdown looks more and more likely
https://www.hk01.com/article/737970?...edium=referral

Please accept my apologies for missing this and subsequent posts on the same subtopic.

Like many others back in 2010, I used to work on business visas. The RP became an important requirement about 5 years ago. The first one is honestly a serious PITA (e.g. you need to get all sorts of documents notarized; I even went to DC to pull this off at the State Department and the PRC consulate). Paying Vincent his $750 is well worth it in this case because he provides a complete plan of attack.

Renewals only cost around $500. It's still worth using Vincent for this IMO because his 关系 is quite good. You do need to go to Pudong at least once in person, but his staff will meet you there. He does require that you work for a real company.

ETA: During the visa days, I always did the drill myself at consulates. This plan of attack no longer works, as noted.

I don't understand pretty much ANY of that. :rolleyes:
The statement: "Any determined individual can score an RP; this won't cost more than $750" is inaccurate then, yes?

I want to say that Vincent can fetch RPs for anyone (ETA: with a college degree), but you'd need to call or message him to confirm your specific details. Feel free to PM me if you want his info.

I’m 100% sure a $750 RP for someone outside of China, using some sort of fake job to get the RP is impossible. If someone is in China it might be possible but this sort of stuff is going away.

delete

The discussion upthread makes this statement a bit glib.

Upthread discussion on RP is consistent with a general trend we experienced dealing with China from Hong Kong - in our cases, getting cross border drivers licence, or turning 来料加工 into more formal onshore enterprises. We agree there is definite regulatory improvements accomplished, but of course, they didn’t completely cut out agents and corruption either.

Not all the regulation is fit for purpose. E.g. when they tightened import duty enforcement for inbound online purchases, they didn't create a carve-out or handling mechanism for return merchandise authorisations (i.e. return of their outbound online purchases on Aliexpress) https://www.watchuseek.com/threads/e...5321057/page-2

The benefit of being in China didn't occur to me, but this is a good point. Even those companies that used to own sub-companies that employed people required an existing visa in order to play ball. I believe the current system is a Z (work) visa that is valid for one month and you need to convert it to an RP. F, L, and X visas haven't been issued since Covid arrived. That having been said, if you have a job offer from McKinsey or similar, they will get you over here.

Well, that's kind of the CRUCIAL part! :rolleyes:
(And we don't need Vincent for an RP if already in China! lol)

Was planning to go to Sanya later this week. Now because of ONE covid case they have stopped all flights to Beijing and have a new rule that everyone who is entering the airport needs to have 2 tests one within 48 hours and one within 24 hours in order to be allowed to leave Sanya on a flight. This stuff is getting old real quick.

This.

My friend moondog conveniently forgot this most crucial part whenever he mentioned Vincent ;)

It honestly didn't occur to me at all because, pre-March 2020, pretty much everybody had some sort of valid PRC visa. I'm pretty sure new RP applicants inside of China can prepare all of the necessary documents here and have originals sent over if absolutely (e.g. technically your degrees should be originals but maybe nobody really cares) required. If you're not in China, you'll probably be advised (by Vincent etc or any company HR...who also uses a Vincent) to get a Z visa in your home country...which, you have to convert to an RP within 30 days (effectively 9 days if you end up with 21-day quarantine).

In hindsight, I was pretty inefficient during my first RP application ~7 years ago (e.g. the criminal background check didn't need to be the FBI report that takes 60 days to generate; my courthouse in Florida or my PSB in Shanghai both could have fulfilled the same requirement quickly). Vincent and his colleague actually did help me with my initial RP; it's my fault for not asking them for advice on how to streamline that part of the process.

While I realize that travelinmanS is dubious, I remain convinced that anyone who is sponsored by a legit Chinese company can still pull off the process.

The differences between now and 7 years ago are: 1. Xi; 2. Covid; and 3. certain job categories are now frowned upon. These are obvious hurdles, but the bureaucracy continues to chug along on its own.

In closing, I've probably mentioned this upthread, but there is no way in hell I would advise any of you to go it alone. Basically, contact an agent or two, run your plan buy them, get feedback (i.e. will this work?), and then decide whether or not you want to take the plunge.

Also flights from Europe to China are being cancelled because they can’t fly over Russian airspace

Soon Russia will ban US carriers from flying over Russian air space.

This won't make many (if any) destinations unviable. Europe-Asia is a bigger challenge, but thankfully there are 4 airlines with hubs in the Middle East.

Would west bound EWR-ICN-PVG (hypothetically) require a fuel stop at ANC?

No.

No offense, but your posts (and advice) still seem very Shanghai-centric, and only for a specific sector of employment/work permit.
There's MANY different ways to get a work permit & RP. Here's Beijing's website on this subject with some good info: Work Permit for foreigners

It's 28 nights+ for many, either cutting it very close, or already in need of an extension.

Definitely good advice, although presuming the agent is any good, I'd approach it the other way around: instead of "running my plan by them" and asking "Will this work?", I'd suggest to ASK THEM what will work, after providing them with the basic information. I've found the agents are far more versed in the intricacies of all the various approaches, that they oftentimes have ideas I wouldn't even think of.

-----> If you only ask a "Will this work?" question, you might only get a "No, it won't!" response! :p

China has decided to use Covid to shut themselves off from the world.

They aren’t giving out work permits for fake jobs anymore, they aren’t allowing agents to bypass regulations anymore and they aren’t welcoming foreigners anymore.

I don’t really understand why anyone would want to get a dodgy work permit and come to China now anyway. If you have no real job here making serious money, what’s the point of being here at the moment?

If Hong Kong’s expats are thinking about upping sticks, I wonder are MNCs able to convince expats to volunteer for PRC postings?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...82d4deba2d.png


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XqXnHF...utu.be&noapp=1

Yesterday's Covid report from Shanghai had a Swiss citizen who travelled from Singapore without residency:

Shanghai Covid Report 20220228

病例16为瑞士籍，在新加坡旅行，自新加坡出发，于2022年2月21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。

1. Spend time with relatives
2. Meet with clients in person
3. Enjoy China

As an aside, RPs are superior to visas.
-eChannel
-no duration of stay limit