I haven't seen specific dates yet, but the Chinese are usually pretty quick rolling out these top down policies, especially after making official announcements.

It is a little annoying though; that none of the info on ANY of the sites and pages includes such wording as: "effective immediately", or "from xxx date on", etc.
:(

Once they commit to dates, they lock themselves in (i.e missing self imposed deadlines = loss of face). If you have a Swiss or Irish passport, you might be able to get more information than has been publicly reported, though.

They used dates for the other 6.
If I have a Swiss passport I might be able to get more info from whom? The Swiss govt. is equally ambiguous about it, unfortunately.

You might want to contact the local embassy Ambassade

I found out during Covid that overseas representations are surprisingly open to answering that kind of questions and, when called or visited, are good at giving hints. Way better than your typical local government ("it's not our call") or email contact (boilerplate answers).

The other obvious place for him to reach out to is the Swiss embassy (which is also a consulate) in Beijing:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...692e04b036.jpg

Not sure about Swiss representations, but IME French representations abroad have a clear "not our problem" stance on these questions.

IME, you just need to engage/befriend the peeps that are clued in (easier to do if your business is relevant to their interests, but simply going to various functions also works, especially in Beijing). The WeChat approach might work in the case of Switzerland because their operation is on the small side.

Cheers, y'all.
I'm subscribed to their monthly newsletter, and important stuff like this is usually cause for an extraordinary post.
But nothing about the 15-day visa free agreement as of yet. Last correspondence was on Jan 17th:

You are cordially invited to the Opening of
Passing the Cities through the Lens of Women
- an exhibition by Catherine Gfeller
瑞士驻华大使馆诚挚邀请您出席
《她和她的城》- 凯瑟琳∙格菲勒个展开幕
Date: Thursday, 25 January 2024 / 时间: 2024年1月25日周四 18:10-21:00




But I've now reached out via WeChat (thanks moondog for the QR code! :tu:)

Reply from Swiss Embassy in Beijing:

"No, we have no information yet"

The consular section in the Chinese embassy in Switzerland can be contacted at [email protected] -- that might be more fruitful since this is a Chinese government issue as opposed to a Swiss government issue.

Sorry, I've already spent my 10 minutes allocated to finding this out for sure! :p
Thanks for the link, but I'm going with: "No one knows. Not determined at this point."

It's a tough call, but if I was forced to choose only one avenue, I'd go with the Swiss officials in the national capital. Surely, the top brass is clued in. By contrast, civil servants that China dispatches to places thousands of miles away are often out of the loop (e.g. many don't even have a vague idea of what twov is).

One question: does a side trip to HK/Taiwan reset the 15 day counter? I mean, in China they might consider it as 'not leaving the country'. I have this trip in mind: 5 days Beijing, 4 days Taiwan, 3 days Hong Kong, 15 days random places around China. Dutch passport.

Yes.