Would love to go to Chengdu either way.
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.
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.
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.