No offense, but I don't think you understand the geopolitical problem at the moment.

Well, if I was negotiating, I would propose that no new frequencies can overfly Russia, but existing Russia overflight frequencies are grandfathered. Since there's only 8x weekly Chinese flights right now (and I think only 5x of them overfly Russia regularly), it'll be a relatively small number of exceptions once flights ramp up, so US airlines would be affected minimally in the long run. And Chinese airlines won't be forced to change what they're currently doing, since only new frequencies are affected.

I think something like this is actually in the "zone of possible agreement" for both sides. However, I don't see an agreement being reached anytime soon due to the current state of US-China relations.

Enlighten me, please!

From all the stuff I read, the Russia overflight thing seems what it always comes down to, since February this year, no?

I am drawing attention to this point from uanj again because I agree that it makes sense.
-as long as airlines from India and the Middle East continue to enjoy Russia overflight privileges to/from the US, China is absolutely justified in crying foul
-there are no laws that prohibit these overflights, but the US could presumably put one in place without much resistance
-if this were to happen, the Russia issue would become non-negotiable (i.e. take it off the table)
-then, the debate would refocus on the protectionist principles that have defined it for the past 20 years

As an aside, I read through the following wiki on the history of the US-China air services agreement yesterday. Even by wikipedia standards, it is poorly written (e.g. lots of present tense language for things that happened ~15 years ago, lacking detail, and surely contains outright inaccuracies), but it provides a decent picture of how we got from there to where we are now:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_ro...ates_and_China

Here's what I just sent to my congressman:

Great post!
(....well, except it falls down a bit at the end where you mention how you want to fly from Jacksonville to Shanghai...I hope you don't mean a direct flight??! )

For better or for worse, Bean happens to represent me (at least, in principle). Obviously, I realize that neither JAX nor ABE are in the running for n/s flights, but both you and I have the ability to crawl our way to NY, if need be. Even, LAX is fine. I simply want the powers that be to stop using Russia as a scapegoat to justify doing nothing.

If the end game is to quickly get back to 2019 level, then I'm all for it. Flying to China shouldn't be this expensive. More people-to-people exchange may actually help Sino-US relations in the long run. I want those $400 Chinese fares to come back!

Me too, but I doubt they will, at least not for MANY years.
Those super low prices were an indication that there was an oversupply of flights, and the airlines are now in a great position [for themselves] to not let that happen any time soon.

I'd settle for resumption of direct flights from various locations in the US --> various locations in China, at a reasonable price.
What is reasonable?
Well, to me it would be something like this for discount fares: ~$1100 R/T in E, ~$1700 R/T in PE, and ~$3600 R/T in J.

Remember UA offering CTU-SFO-NYC RT for 2800 in business for several years? Definitely not reasonable but an incredible value.

UA has to bring that back.

UA is not going to bring those fares back on its own accord. However, a little pressure from CZ, MF, and MU wouldn't hurt.

Sichuan Airlines flew I believe to LAX prior to the pandemic. It'll be a long time before we see fares like this again.

Checked some random dates in June.

MU JFK-PVG 66000 CNY

UA EWR-SFO-PVG 80000 CNY

This doesn't make sense unless UA strongly believes that folks are stuck with UA and have no choice.

Unlikely to happen any time soon with such limited number of flights to China.

Lowest RT fares for 857/858 are something like $3,000-$5,000 in E, $8,000-$11,000 in PE and $16,000-$28,000 in J.

Agreed. That's why I wrote I'd settle for those; that would make me happy. Not asking for those ridiculous cheap fares, just some normalcy. But even that is far off, unfortunately.

I can get from Eastcoast USA to Beijing and back for ~$3000 in J on UA (for the long flights) with some creativity, at least one night's stay along the way in either Japan or Korea, some PlusPoints, and one or two of the shorter flights in E.

Not ideal, but financially acceptable.