Current China Entry policy
 

We have a ton of large orders going on with our factories in Shenzhen, and I'm trying to be on the ground over there.

I currently have a 10 year entry visa with a US passport. Can anyone advise if their allowing US citizens in? (i'm perfectly healthy)

Side note would be if there are any one world carriers still flying there? (Im based in NYC)

At present, you would need to convince a Chinese embassy or consulate to issue you a new visa. With a new visa, you can enter China. You'd have to ask what sort of documents you'd have to produce to support your visa application.

Even if you can enter China, there's still the quarantine to consider.

If you are able to procure a new visa, many of us would appreciate your account on what the process entails.

You’re not getting into China until they lift the foreigner ban. My friends and I think that’ll happen sometime early next year.

It is not an absolute ban on foreigners entering China: the official announcement makes clear that foreigners may be granted visas to enter China in certain cases:

"Foreign nationals coming to China for necessary economic, trade, scientific or technological activities or out of emergency humanitarian needs may apply for visas at Chinese embassies or consulates. Entry by foreign nationals with visas issued after this announcement will not be affected."

How the OP would demonstrate that necessary trade activities require his travel to China, I do not know. But the door is there. He'll have to knock to see how widely it will open.

http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/t1761867.shtml

China says these things so they can say it isn’t a complete ban. I’d be curious to see how many visas they have issued since the announcement. Probably under 100 worldwide. If the OP is a Nobel prize winning infectious disease specialist or a billionaire investor employing hundreds of thousands of Chinese then maybe they have a shot. Otherwise, nope.

They are still processing renewals in Shanghai, and presumably other places, so I think you'll be fine yourself.

Similar to their "green card" how many have they issued in last 15 years..a few hundred.

What possible pressing reason for business would require a personal visit to china now?
Its locked down..they have no reason to risk infected foreigners coming in.

You're making some broad statements there based on what you and "your friends" think.

Anything first-hand -- yes, first hand not rumour -- to back up any of your assertions? Anything at all?

Otherwise, you're just guessing.

(No, in terms of daily life, China for the most part is not "locked down.")

If you have urgent business situation that requires a company representative/employee to physically go to china hire a chinese national.

In this emergency the country is in lockdown and restricting entry, in most cases, to only chinese nationals.

I can refer charter flights on a gulfstream its 50k usd per person each way.

Have you any contact whatever with people in China? If you did, you wouldn't make that sort of statement. Daily life is not "in lockdown" these days.

What's the point of spreading that kind of false information here?

I am guessing that, instead of lockdown, he meant to say unwelcoming to arrivals from other countries. This affects me because if I were to leave now, I wouldn't be allowed to return, but I'm fine with the current policies to the extent that they protect us from further outbreaks.

"Lockdown" in this crisis has a pretty specific meaning. There are sporadic lockdowns of various degrees still hitting hotspots that sometimes popup, like Suifenhe, but taken as a whole, China is heading back to normal with surprising speed.

If you want the legal definition its a"border quarantine".

No. You will need special permission, i.e. a new visa.

No. China does not have any OW carrier. The closest one is CX, i.e. to Hong Kong.

But you are banned in Hong Kong.

The OP asked about OW carriers flying to the Mainland, not within it. KA and JL are the only two that come to my mind at present, but there might be some other options between China and Europe (i.e. I haven't checked).

So if you renew your RP after 28 March, can you then leave and come back? Anyone tried it?

An RP is effectively the same as a visa in this respect. My agent tells me that they are not more difficult to renew now than prior to March 28. While it's possible that he's fibbing, I doubt it because he doesn't get paid until he delivers.

Can you travel freely within mainland China now?

China is to ease its domestic coronavirus travel restrictions by issuing national standards for a Covid-19 health QR code, national authorities announced on Friday.
Eligible citizens who were previously subject to tough quarantine and travel restrictions will be allowed to travel around the country.

SCMP article yesterday

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...36cedfccae.jpg

Delete

Given as of now, OP is a Do Not Admit, everything is pretty much moot.

Well, the current policy is kind of stupid. Mandatory quarantines for all arrivals at your own expense (if a non citizen) makes more sense. Just that policy alone would cut down on all but the most essential trips. Hawaii arrivals fell from around 30k-35k per day to below 200 with their mandatory 14 day quarantines on arrival, but there's no stupid restriction like you have to be a Hawaii resident to go to Hawaii. Regardless of whether you are a resident or visitor, if you go, you serve your quarantine (and if a visitor, you pay for the hotel and food for 14 days).

I don't think it's stupid to limit the number of arrivals towards the end of keeping the numbers manageable (i.e. not flood the quarantine hotels with more people than they can safely handle). Selfishly, it would be nice if (pre-March 28) RPs were included in the admissible class, but the blanket ban is a lot simpler to understand and implement.

When you put a sign on the factory door "no customers" allowed. Doesn't take too long before you go out of business.


US-bound shipments from China plunged 25.2 per cent in the first quarter compared to the year-earlier period, including a 20.8 per cent fall in March.

OP has a "ton of large orders" open the factory door and let him in. Already lost half their customers..wanna lose them all?

What do you think a mandatory 14 day quarantine does? It dramatically limits the number of arrivals, as the example of Hawaii shows (daily arrivals down something like 99.5-99.7%). As for your case, if there were a mandatory 14 day quarantine on arrival back in China, you'd probably not leave and come back unless you really had to, which is the whole point. In my case, I'm just not going, and my wife isn't going either. She could still go without me but she doesn't want to serve out a 14 day quarantine..which is also the point. But there are some people who actually live and work in China and are married to Chinese citizens who can't go back right now because of this stupid policy...those are the people who would gladly serve out a 14 day quarantine. You could argue that they would be able to apply for a new visa but that adds even more paperwork on top of an already annoying process, and possibly a multi day trip to a city with a Chinese consulate, while it's the mandatory quarantines that serve as the biggest deterrent to travel.

There already is a quarantine. If they allowed more people to enter, it would impose additional strain upon the quarantine infrastructure.

To be willing to undergo a strict 14-day quarantine at one's own expense in a Chinese hotel, one would have to have an awfully awfully strong commitment and motivation to be travelling to China. I certainly don't buy the "Why they'll be flooding in!" argument. Besides, the limited number of flights imposes a limit on the number entering each day.

They're presumably comfortable in their ability to accommodate the current inbound traffic. It's their call as to when and how much to further open the spigot. Not all of the quarantine hotels suck FYI.

Where did I suggest the hotels themselves would be a problem? Imprisonment is imprisonment, even if in a gilded cage.

There are presumably reasons behind continuation of the foreigner blockade. But "limited quarantine hotels" is a smokescreen for whatever are those real reasons. (Skepticism is a useful approach in China.)

Depending on one's narrative of the origination failure to implement a nationwide border quarantine would be going down a slippery slope. Obviously the US fell off a cliff.

The border quarantine has been place for over a month, and I haven't heard of any leakages.

"Obviously the US fell off a cliff."

Let us not forget -- ever -- how China attacked the U.S. when it blocked entry from China in late January, attacking America at the very time China itself had blockaded travel from Hubei.

"True feeling shines through in hardship . . . Many countries have shown their support and help for China’s fight against the epidemic. By contrast, the United States’ words and deeds are not in keeping with the facts and less are they in keeping with friendship.” So said a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

How on earth was blocking arrivals from China in late January "not in keeping with the facts"?

As I recall, the US initially did not block arrivals from China, it blocked Chinese citizens. I read that 450,000 people traveled between the two countries after the "blockade".
On a somewhat related subject, anybody who can read the Chinese press (and social media- the new propaganda tool) will notice that in recent weeks the language changed and sounds like what you could read during the cultural revolution. It certainly has my Chinese friends over 50 years old somewhat worried as this language is all too familiar and brings back very bad memories. Foreigners and foreign countries are referred to as the enemy, foreigners in China are spies and Chinese who moved abroad are traitors, especially if they change passport. The expression traitor is used a lot these days and rather loosely.

[MENTION=638610]JPDM[/MENTION] Since we aren't allowed to discuss politics in this sub forum (a policy I fully support BTW), I simply want to state that your observations are consistent with my own, but I'm not especially worried about long term implications.

"As I recall, the US initially did not block arrivals from China, it blocked Chinese citizens."

You know with Google, it's so easy to check and post the truth. Why spread false information like that?

Here's the actual language of the Presidential proclamation:

"The entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of all aliens who were physically present within the People’s Republic of China, excluding the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau, during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States is hereby suspended and limited subject to section 2 of this proclamation."

Section 2 then lays out certain exceptions for close relatives of Americans, Green Card holders, etc.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/presidenti...l-coronavirus/

A primary objective of Intelligence & Analysis is determining the credibility of
a source. "Ministerial words" rank below "I saw it written on a bathroom wall".

Can we please stick with known facts, guys? In the instant case, we are waiting on the OP (or anyone else) to provide data based on actual experiences. Attempting to read Zhongnanhai's mind is an exercise in futility, but if any of you feel compelled to brainstorm, head over to bad OMNI.

Well, no. The US blocked everyone coming directly from China, or who had been in China for the past 14 days, regardless of citizenship, with exceptions only for its own citizens and green card holders and a few other categories, who were still allowed to fly directly from China. Where the US screwed up was in not requiring mandatory quarantines for returning US citizens/green card holders on arrival. But while the US was too lenient on its own citizens and other citizens coming from places other than China (including Italy/Europe), China's approach is also ridiculous. While I can understand banning everyone except their own citizens from epicenter outbreak locations (such as the US) at this time, not allowing people in from New Zealand and other places that have effectively been able to suppress their outbreaks (even if they're willing to submit to a 14 day quarantine to make extra sure) makes no sense.

SARS-CoV-2 is a virus. It does not care where you're flying from or what citizenship you hold. It will infect anyone (actually, I should say anything, since cats and dogs and other animals can apparently get it too) with ACE-2 receptors.