smapti

I was at Suzhou Suinan International Airport yesterday - the customs process was quite efficient, as I was the only foreigner in line. BUT - I didn't have any bags to pick up from the carousel, and I was ready to go home - they made EVERY SINGLE PERSON wait in line to put their bags through the X-ray. The line was extremely long, extremely slow, and backed around the corner. If they were going to do this every day, I would imagine that they should at least have 2 X-ray machines - maybe even 3, to make the process more efficient. But they don't. It's just 1.

I tried to go through the "nothing to declare" line, but they stopped me and told me I had to wait in line.

Is this a normal process for China? This is the first time I have noticed this...and I think that this process is rather stupid and ridiculous. Especially since they can check the bags en-route.

Has anybody else had to experience this as well? Does anybody else feel that this process is really awful?

At this airport, they even check people BEFORE entering the airport as well, which I think is quite weird.

moondog

IME exit searches like this happen less than 1% of the time, but they definitely happen. I don't have a problem with the process myself; I've seen much more inconvenient/invasive in other places.

Where is this airport you speak of by the way (typo or two perhaps)?

889

This is the Wuxi Airport I've previously mentioned, which is sort of shared with Suzhou. But it's 苏南 Sunan not Suinan.

moondog

Ah, that makes sense.

sinoflyer

As you has reminded me in another thread, this is the airport shared by Wuxi and Suzhou. IIRC just several years ago it only had a handful of domestic flights and none of the regional ones like TPE.

Expect to have your luggage scanned upon existing customs. I’ve had it happen to me after arriving in PEK, PVG, and most recently in XIY and CTU. I presume it’s intended for spotting contraband and I consider it routine practice.

WRT security screening at the entrance, it is standard practice at all airports, rail stations, and subway stations across China. Recollections of attacks, for one the knivings of numerous passengers at Kunming railway station several years ago, should put the reasoning behind this practice into perspective.

Cryofern

My procedure at PEK was to walk past the line with my single backpack. Usually I was stopped and told to put the backpack through the machine, but nobody instructed me to go to the back of the line.

Loren Pechtel

Ran into the same thing in PEK a week ago. The nothing to declare lead to the x-ray, all bags were expected to go through it. No appreciable backup, though--but we had a very early arrival.

Internaut

OTOH, arriving in PVG at the end of last month, I was waived through. Come to think of it, they were waving through foreigners in general (but also quite a lot of Chinese). Perhaps it depends on busy they are, if the they have the capacity or if they're suffering from an old Chinese problem*. If customs can check everyone, I'm guessing they will.

* Numbers!

JPDM

My recollection is that I had to get my luggage checked at PEK and Guangzhou for a few years now.

uanj

This year airports in China are x-raying inbound arrivals most of the time. I have been waved through a couple of times in PVG because the lines were backed up and I only had a trolley. But most people were getting x-rayed, The last few months I have seen them telling aircrew to go through the x-ray line as well.

YuropFlyer

I take it you've not travelled very much, or at least not through many different countries? Fairly common if not standard in quite some countries, in fact probably in countries holding the majority of all people world wide..

seanpodge

Certainly common enough in my arrivals at PEK. Usually just means putting all one's luggage through an X-ray machine. While not suggesting that anyone take their chances, I assume they're only looking for serious contraband with this type of check (e.g. weapons, large quantities of drugs, etc). To be honest, this is far less severe than the quarantine procedure one usually goes through when arriving in Australia, where a physical inspection of one's bags by officers is commonplace.

The inspection when entering a Chinese airport that the OP refers to is I assume the explosives check, where a group of passengers are herded off, their luggage swabbed and the swab put through a machine before everyone is let through. This came about after someone tried to essentially do a suicide bomb attack at the check in area of PVG with fireworks contained in beer bottles. It only caused minor injuries, but understandably the local authorities didn't want anyone else trying it out for themselves.

mcjava

I have travelled through PVG 12 times or so this year. Starting late last year, they really started doing the "everyone x-ray your big bags" a lot.

At first I thought some days they do it, others not.

But the last couple trips, I have seen them actually switch from "every person" mode to "only the ones we see with big boxes" mode due to long backups. But I've waited 30 minutes to get through also, with no mercy.....

I've had 15 bottles of wine, multiple frozen steaks, lots of things that I assume are formally not allowed or should be taxed due to duty free limits.
But not stopped even once.

So, I assume they are looking for dangerous (weapons/drugs) contraband, and perhaps expensive things like a suitcase full of 100 or 200 iphones/ipads ???? No idea but seems like Chinese thinking is more worried about these things than me bringing back Italian wine I can't find in China.

synthkeys

I usually exit at one of the land borders in Shenzhen, mostly Shenzhen Bay. These checkpoints don't typically require scanning when leaving, however, I have been puilled aside for secondary inspection a few times.

Last time was in August, the driver pulled back into the inspection area and I had to get out a put my bags through the x-ray machine. All previous times, there was no issue. This last time, I had bought a few big cigar lighters that were in my suitcase, a few of them looked a little like a weapon and they flagged them on the x-ray. So I had to pull my bag up and they went through it, found the lighters, inspected them and everything was fine. It just so happened that this crossing was when the demonstrations were happening at HKG, so we also got pulled for secondary inspection on the HK side. But they seemed more interested in checking out the driver's van than checking my bags.

Entering at the Shenzhen crossings, I always put may bag through the scanner. Coming in I have all sorts of things in my baggage, I've even brought frozen steaks a few times. I've never been pulled for secondary inspection. I guess nothing looked like a weapon.