4 ms·

China’s Latest Problem: People Don’t Want to Go There

19 points by yarapavan 3y ago

yarapavan 3y ago
https://archive.is/o4sKW https://archive.is/o4sKW
FreshStart 3y ago
Barely mentioned : mainlanders who are forcibly repatriated against there will upon arrival by destroying other passports and renouncing citizenship. Xi leads his country back into north Korea isolationism. This was apparent even pre covid. His policy also actively fight the building of a intellectual creator caste aka engineers and software developers. No idea were the country is heading,especially with bejing flooded..
alephnerd 3y ago
Surprised they don't bring up the fact that there's a pretty massive Visa and Passport backlog on the Chinese govt's side because the re-opening was very last minute. I have friends paying touts to literally stand in line on their behalf at consulates in SF and NYC because the process is still extremely bureaucratic and paper based.
thefurdrake 3y ago
I feel like this is all part of the plan. The CCP has always been salty about how economic interaction also causes cultural interaction, exposing their citizens to ideas that the Party dislikes. The fact that casual tourism is dropping plays right into their hands. Perhaps China feels self-sufficient enough now that they are willing to go the isolationism route?
- isykt 3y ago
  >Perhaps China feels self-sufficient enough now that they are willing to go the isolationism route? China is the world’s biggest importer of meat, dairy, soybeans and corn. China is roughly the same size as the US in terms of land mass. Only 10% of Chinese soil is arable, for a population of 1.4B people. For comparison, around 17% of US land is arable, for a population of 332m. Isolationism also doesn't make sense in the context of the Belt and Road initiative, which exists to solve the exact problem of food shortages (and the need to dump steel, etc created by hyper-financialization) .
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  This might be more like society wide depression, where the suffering wrongly think their best course of action is to not get help.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  They wouldn't be making payment easier recently for foreigner if that was the case. TLDR is expensive tickets and long paperwork and limited flights. Yes there's also raising frictions with new espionahe laws that makes business more difficult. But really PRC fine with foreigners (really westeners) if they operate in PRC on PRC terms.
- yongjik 3y ago
  I don't think that makes sense. China is communist in name only, and there must be a lot of places where the biggest source of income is tourism. And what happens when the majority of people in a town suddenly lose jobs? They start to ask "What the hell is our government doing, while we're going through this shit?" An economically happy populace is one that's easy to rule over. There is no reason why the CCP should want its people to be upset.
scohesc 3y ago
There's many reasons why someone wouldn't want to go to China. Cost and language barriers are the biggest ones I would assume for the vast majority of potential visitors. From a tech-minded perspective, the list gets larger. You're being tracked 24/7 by cameras, where you go, what you do, potentially what you spend your money on if you have to use their financial system. If you speak the language and you happen to say something that's disagreeable to their government or their police, how do you know you won't end up in a cell for your crime? Seeing stories of the government welding people into their apartment complexes to avoid the spread of viruses, hauling people into boxed vans to be taken away, etc. etc. Not to mention the news media covering stories about "secret" police stations set up in foreign countries where Chinese operatives keep eyes on their ex-pats, potentially attempting to kidnap them and force them to return to China for some untold crime. If you want to see dystopian, authoritarian governments exerting control over their citizens, it would be a great place to go, but I'm fine experiencing the beginning of the surveillance state in my home country. It's sad though because they have beautiful parks and attractions for people to visit and learn about their rich cultural history spanning thousands of years. Shame about the government though.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  The world is too big to risk indefinite detention if you walk by a protest.
- adude2016 3y ago
  The biggest issue is random arrest, randomly refuse to let you leave the country. Even if for non political reasons, if you have ANY sort of business dispute, or personal dispute (valid or not) that can get you flagged. And totally lack of transparency regarding the process or rules.
- FreshStart 3y ago
  Eh, the culture and history are gone, Mao did see to that. What's left was reconstructed in hard work or reimported from Singapore or Taiwan. Is very sad Also century of humiliation did never end as ccp is just colonial Administrator of country preventing 1.4 billion from realizing there full potential. China's success was made by partially free citizens despite ccp.
local_issues 3y ago
Sad. Chinese cuisine is arguably the best in the world, and I've heard the streets are finally clean and the air is getting better. Despite those both being major issues in India, people still go there in droves, so maybe politics > experience? Would love to go to Chengdu either way.
- samarthr1 3y ago
  Depends really on when and where you go. India has got some nice unpolluted places, and it has Delhi, around November (when the people a state downwind burn crop stubble). On the cleanliness issue, all we can really say is that we are trying harder! The railway system used to be very dirty, it is much much cleaner now. Food hygiene can be a problem for those not used to it, but standard common sense rules like eating in crowded places should keep you safe. Oh, and we don't have a habit of demanding you to register with the police when checking in to a hotel unlike some other countries.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    India has a higher upside potential because of this.
  - local_issues 3y ago
    I'm a big fan of Chinese culture but I'm absolutely not a China bull. If India can stay on this track, the next few centuries will be theirs for the taking. Demographics are in their favor, democracy is shittier short term but very stable long term, China's growth is slowing, and India engineering is world class. I think we'll see China like Brazil - a country that had a shot, and spent it, and is now permanently middle income; a regional power.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Most inbound travel to India and China is from the diaspora (both nations have some of the largest diasporas in the world). With China the process is a bit wonky because a lot of Chinese diaspora members won't renounce Chinese citizenship when they acquire a 2nd citizenship (even though this is technically illegal in China). Diaspora members want to continue to have the ability to buy property and investments within China as well as have a streamlined way to return to meet extended family so they keep the Chinese passport, but this means you have to keep renewing it every couple years. When Zero COVID kicked in from late 2019 to January 2023, the renewal process and visa process basically shut down, and because of discontent in late 2022, the entire reopening process was super haphazard and rushed to meet the Jan 23 commitment, you now had millions of (on-paper) Chinese nationals trying renew their Passports, multiple foreign nationals of Chinese origin renouncing Chinese nationality because of headaches, and plenty of foreign national Chinese diaspora memberd applying for visas to visit family or do business in China. The MFA was unable to scale up and so the backlog is crazy, especially because it's done by the Chinese govt itself. In India's case, the entire visa, passport, and OCI renewal, creation, and renounciation process is outsourced to 2 Indian companies called VFS Global and BLS International which does the same process for a bunch of other countries like the UK, Spain, Cyprus, Afghanistan, and Portugal. Honestly, I'm surprised the Chinese govt hasn't gotten around to streamlining the whole process or at least making some form of a Diaspora PR like India did with the OCI. That would solve a lot of the travel related headaches. I you can use a registered agent, but it seems kind of wonky compared with having a single corporation doing everything from an efficiency standpoint.
lockhouse 3y ago
Are my kids allowed to bring their Winnie the Pooh toys? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Poo...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mensetmanusman 3y ago
It turns out imprisoning cities containing many thousands of foreigners while flying drones demanding people suppress their spirit for freedom has consequences.
Canada 3y ago
> “The world needs to be connected,” he said I agree. Start by restoring access to the internet.
gsatic 3y ago
"China does seem to portray itself as very anti-Western, anti-American" Anti-American and the anti-Western feeling exists all over. Just have to the scratch the surface to see it. The west is not worth emulating anymore unless you want to be the kardashians or something. China is expressing it more openly, cuz they arent as dependent on the west as much as the result of the world is.
adude2016 3y ago
Biggest issue is lack of transparency and law and process. Even small business or personal disputes can get you flagged, you can't leave the country. Even if you aren't in jail or charged with any crime. You may not even know where and how to appeal. It is still completely rule by edict and personal relationship/connections.
- adude2016 3y ago
  and the continuous crack down on party streets that foreigners frequent, it really makes it no longer fun at all.
- dirtyid 3y ago
  That's a trivial / statisically insignificant issue - foreign visitors on exit visa shit list is triple digits (less than rounding error) and most know they're on shit list and wont return unless coerced too. Other groups of concern are those PRC doesn't want in country anyway, they'd get filtered out at VISA stage. Not to mention majority of inbound visitors to are predominantly diasphora not tourism. Biggest issue is ticket price to PRC exploded especially Q1 (range of this article) right after end of zero covid and PRC consulate have massive backlog of visa and paperwork to process. Most of the diasphora I know wants to return but won't because too expensive or can't because paperwork. There's also UKR war + US/PRC disputes over resuming flights drama with respect to overflights over RU territory = current US to PRC routes was like 5% precovid a few months ago. WSJ article trying to imply marginal foreign tourism numbers is a problem - then admits it impacts PRC little relative to tourism dependent countries). Meanwhile PRC domestic tourism surged due to people being stuck in country (covid controls + now expensive tickets). Relatively RoW has much more problem with lack of PRC outbound tourist then PRC lack of inbound tourism what is also backstopped by raising domestic tourism.
  - livueta 3y ago
    I won't argue about how big of an issue it is relative to the other factors you mention, but there absolutely has been an upswing in willingness to fuck with members of the business community who'd previously largely been left alone. Like you say, in 2015, you were probably fine unless you were up to something really shitlist-able; doubly so if affiliated with a major western multinational. That appears to be getting less true, with an exec from Astellas and professionals from Mintz and Bain getting nabbed: https://www.economist.com/china/2023/05/04/a-battle-against-spies-in-china-is-spooking-locals-and-foreigners https://www.economist.com/china/2023/05/04/a-battle-against-... I spent a fair bit of time in Shanghai 2017-2019 for work, have a 10-year unlimited entry visa, and won't be going back for that and a few other reasons.

19 points by yarapavan 3y ago

https://archive.is/o4sKW https://archive.is/o4sKW

Barely mentioned : mainlanders who are forcibly repatriated against there will upon arrival by destroying other passports and renouncing citizenship. Xi leads his country back into north Korea isolationism. This was apparent even pre covid. His policy also actively fight the building of a intellectual creator caste aka engineers and software developers. No idea were the country is heading,especially with bejing flooded..

alephnerd 3y ago

Surprised they don't bring up the fact that there's a pretty massive Visa and Passport backlog on the Chinese govt's side because the re-opening was very last minute. I have friends paying touts to literally stand in line on their behalf at consulates in SF and NYC because the process is still extremely bureaucratic and paper based.

thefurdrake 3y ago

I feel like this is all part of the plan. The CCP has always been salty about how economic interaction also causes cultural interaction, exposing their citizens to ideas that the Party dislikes. The fact that casual tourism is dropping plays right into their hands. Perhaps China feels self-sufficient enough now that they are willing to go the isolationism route?

isykt 3y ago
>Perhaps China feels self-sufficient enough now that they are willing to go the isolationism route? China is the world’s biggest importer of meat, dairy, soybeans and corn. China is roughly the same size as the US in terms of land mass. Only 10% of Chinese soil is arable, for a population of 1.4B people. For comparison, around 17% of US land is arable, for a population of 332m. Isolationism also doesn't make sense in the context of the Belt and Road initiative, which exists to solve the exact problem of food shortages (and the need to dump steel, etc created by hyper-financialization) .
mensetmanusman 3y ago
This might be more like society wide depression, where the suffering wrongly think their best course of action is to not get help.
dirtyid 3y ago
They wouldn't be making payment easier recently for foreigner if that was the case. TLDR is expensive tickets and long paperwork and limited flights. Yes there's also raising frictions with new espionahe laws that makes business more difficult. But really PRC fine with foreigners (really westeners) if they operate in PRC on PRC terms.
yongjik 3y ago
I don't think that makes sense. China is communist in name only, and there must be a lot of places where the biggest source of income is tourism. And what happens when the majority of people in a town suddenly lose jobs? They start to ask "What the hell is our government doing, while we're going through this shit?" An economically happy populace is one that's easy to rule over. There is no reason why the CCP should want its people to be upset.

scohesc 3y ago

There's many reasons why someone wouldn't want to go to China. Cost and language barriers are the biggest ones I would assume for the vast majority of potential visitors. From a tech-minded perspective, the list gets larger. You're being tracked 24/7 by cameras, where you go, what you do, potentially what you spend your money on if you have to use their financial system. If you speak the language and you happen to say something that's disagreeable to their government or their police, how do you know you won't end up in a cell for your crime? Seeing stories of the government welding people into their apartment complexes to avoid the spread of viruses, hauling people into boxed vans to be taken away, etc. etc. Not to mention the news media covering stories about "secret" police stations set up in foreign countries where Chinese operatives keep eyes on their ex-pats, potentially attempting to kidnap them and force them to return to China for some untold crime. If you want to see dystopian, authoritarian governments exerting control over their citizens, it would be a great place to go, but I'm fine experiencing the beginning of the surveillance state in my home country. It's sad though because they have beautiful parks and attractions for people to visit and learn about their rich cultural history spanning thousands of years. Shame about the government though.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mensetmanusman 3y ago
The world is too big to risk indefinite detention if you walk by a protest.
adude2016 3y ago
The biggest issue is random arrest, randomly refuse to let you leave the country. Even if for non political reasons, if you have ANY sort of business dispute, or personal dispute (valid or not) that can get you flagged. And totally lack of transparency regarding the process or rules.
FreshStart 3y ago
Eh, the culture and history are gone, Mao did see to that. What's left was reconstructed in hard work or reimported from Singapore or Taiwan. Is very sad Also century of humiliation did never end as ccp is just colonial Administrator of country preventing 1.4 billion from realizing there full potential. China's success was made by partially free citizens despite ccp.

local_issues 3y ago

Sad. Chinese cuisine is arguably the best in the world, and I've heard the streets are finally clean and the air is getting better. Despite those both being major issues in India, people still go there in droves, so maybe politics > experience? Would love to go to Chengdu either way.

samarthr1 3y ago
Depends really on when and where you go. India has got some nice unpolluted places, and it has Delhi, around November (when the people a state downwind burn crop stubble). On the cleanliness issue, all we can really say is that we are trying harder! The railway system used to be very dirty, it is much much cleaner now. Food hygiene can be a problem for those not used to it, but standard common sense rules like eating in crowded places should keep you safe. Oh, and we don't have a habit of demanding you to register with the police when checking in to a hotel unlike some other countries.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  India has a higher upside potential because of this.
- local_issues 3y ago
  I'm a big fan of Chinese culture but I'm absolutely not a China bull. If India can stay on this track, the next few centuries will be theirs for the taking. Demographics are in their favor, democracy is shittier short term but very stable long term, China's growth is slowing, and India engineering is world class. I think we'll see China like Brazil - a country that had a shot, and spent it, and is now permanently middle income; a regional power.
alephnerd 3y ago
Most inbound travel to India and China is from the diaspora (both nations have some of the largest diasporas in the world). With China the process is a bit wonky because a lot of Chinese diaspora members won't renounce Chinese citizenship when they acquire a 2nd citizenship (even though this is technically illegal in China). Diaspora members want to continue to have the ability to buy property and investments within China as well as have a streamlined way to return to meet extended family so they keep the Chinese passport, but this means you have to keep renewing it every couple years. When Zero COVID kicked in from late 2019 to January 2023, the renewal process and visa process basically shut down, and because of discontent in late 2022, the entire reopening process was super haphazard and rushed to meet the Jan 23 commitment, you now had millions of (on-paper) Chinese nationals trying renew their Passports, multiple foreign nationals of Chinese origin renouncing Chinese nationality because of headaches, and plenty of foreign national Chinese diaspora memberd applying for visas to visit family or do business in China. The MFA was unable to scale up and so the backlog is crazy, especially because it's done by the Chinese govt itself. In India's case, the entire visa, passport, and OCI renewal, creation, and renounciation process is outsourced to 2 Indian companies called VFS Global and BLS International which does the same process for a bunch of other countries like the UK, Spain, Cyprus, Afghanistan, and Portugal. Honestly, I'm surprised the Chinese govt hasn't gotten around to streamlining the whole process or at least making some form of a Diaspora PR like India did with the OCI. That would solve a lot of the travel related headaches. I you can use a registered agent, but it seems kind of wonky compared with having a single corporation doing everything from an efficiency standpoint.

lockhouse 3y ago

Are my kids allowed to bring their Winnie the Pooh toys? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Pooh_in_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Winnie-the-Poo...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mensetmanusman 3y ago

It turns out imprisoning cities containing many thousands of foreigners while flying drones demanding people suppress their spirit for freedom has consequences.

Canada 3y ago

> “The world needs to be connected,” he said I agree. Start by restoring access to the internet.

gsatic 3y ago

"China does seem to portray itself as very anti-Western, anti-American" Anti-American and the anti-Western feeling exists all over. Just have to the scratch the surface to see it. The west is not worth emulating anymore unless you want to be the kardashians or something. China is expressing it more openly, cuz they arent as dependent on the west as much as the result of the world is.

adude2016 3y ago

Biggest issue is lack of transparency and law and process. Even small business or personal disputes can get you flagged, you can't leave the country. Even if you aren't in jail or charged with any crime. You may not even know where and how to appeal. It is still completely rule by edict and personal relationship/connections.

adude2016 3y ago
and the continuous crack down on party streets that foreigners frequent, it really makes it no longer fun at all.
dirtyid 3y ago
That's a trivial / statisically insignificant issue - foreign visitors on exit visa shit list is triple digits (less than rounding error) and most know they're on shit list and wont return unless coerced too. Other groups of concern are those PRC doesn't want in country anyway, they'd get filtered out at VISA stage. Not to mention majority of inbound visitors to are predominantly diasphora not tourism. Biggest issue is ticket price to PRC exploded especially Q1 (range of this article) right after end of zero covid and PRC consulate have massive backlog of visa and paperwork to process. Most of the diasphora I know wants to return but won't because too expensive or can't because paperwork. There's also UKR war + US/PRC disputes over resuming flights drama with respect to overflights over RU territory = current US to PRC routes was like 5% precovid a few months ago. WSJ article trying to imply marginal foreign tourism numbers is a problem - then admits it impacts PRC little relative to tourism dependent countries). Meanwhile PRC domestic tourism surged due to people being stuck in country (covid controls + now expensive tickets). Relatively RoW has much more problem with lack of PRC outbound tourist then PRC lack of inbound tourism what is also backstopped by raising domestic tourism.
- livueta 3y ago
  I won't argue about how big of an issue it is relative to the other factors you mention, but there absolutely has been an upswing in willingness to fuck with members of the business community who'd previously largely been left alone. Like you say, in 2015, you were probably fine unless you were up to something really shitlist-able; doubly so if affiliated with a major western multinational. That appears to be getting less true, with an exec from Astellas and professionals from Mintz and Bain getting nabbed: https://www.economist.com/china/2023/05/04/a-battle-against-spies-in-china-is-spooking-locals-and-foreigners https://www.economist.com/china/2023/05/04/a-battle-against-... I spent a fair bit of time in Shanghai 2017-2019 for work, have a 10-year unlimited entry visa, and won't be going back for that and a few other reasons.