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Comment by jimbob45 | Hacker News Reader

Do you have an explanation for China’s low tourism? Is it just latent fears of COVID?

I doubt it's about COVID now. The government has really ruined China's "brand" internationally.

1. You need an onerous-to-obtain visa to visit. There is no visa exemption.

2. Banking is a total pain for a foreigner. Many places only accept Alipay or Wechat, which require a Chinese bank account. Cash doesn't work well either, because the largest denomination is tiny.

3. Many US-China flights were canceled in the pandemic and never restarted afterwards. As a result, flights to China are expensive.

4. The Western apps are commonly blocked in China, and the local apps don't have an English translation. Your smartphone is a lot less useful in China.

5. Many US employers ban their employees from bringing company equipment (laptops) into China for fear of corporate espionage.

6. Lots of reports of hostile behavior toward westerners...

The list could go on. There's a reason e.g. Japanese tourism is booming!

Perfect list. Sums it up completely

> 5. Many US employers ban their employees from bringing company equipment (laptops) into China for fear of corporate espionage.

Even Hong Kong, these days.

7. I have no desire to be a political prisoner abducted to leverage a concession from the west. Same reason I would avoid Russia, North Korea, or probably areas of Mexico with cartels. See Michael Spavor, Michael Kovrig, and Brit Gringer.

I doubt they would do that to an average schmuck like me, but the fact that it's a common consideration shows how far the Chinese government has fallen in the international public's perception.

It's a shame, too. China has some really great cultural sites, substantial natural beauty, cosmopolitan cities, and excellent and varied cuisine. It would be a great tourist destination under a different government.

It's not a legitimate consideration though.

You're right; the risk of abduction is vanishingly small, even if many people are terrified of the power of the Chinese government. I'll replace "legitimate" with "common" in my comment.

Common consideration would be more accurate, I agree. That said, I think it's a very silly consideration regardless of how frequently it's considered.

A work colleague checked their phone when a protest happened a block away and was then interrogated on the weekend for 10 hours by state police.

This is average schmuk stuff in China.

This is a singular anecdotal experience. There are 1.4 billion people in China, most never experiencing anything like that in their lifetime.

People aren't going to KubeCon China because of being harassed by minders. This is not an isolated case. It is pervasive and it is chilling.

It's not pervasive. Incredible claims require evidence, which you have none. If anecdotal evidence is enough, dozens of people I know go to China with zero issues regularly. Many people we know live there with zero issues. There's 1.4 billion people, logistically what got are saying is not feasible for a country that size. It's nonsense.

Western travelers would fit more within the 10% or so of China with total wealth in the $100-$1,000k range.

These are the people with the means to challenge the power structure, and they are watched more closely.

If someone in this wealth range holds up a blank piece of paper, they may end up in jail.

Holding up a blank piece of paper is a completely different scenario and topic! We are talking about normal, everyday travel for business and recreation. If you go there and do something taboo, something that's clearly intended to cause trouble, then what do you expect?

With any foreign country you should understand their cultural norms and laws. Your own ignorance is a valid consideration for travel, not being arrested as a political prisoner. You won't get in any trouble as a tourist or business person 99% of the time.

> You won't get in any trouble as a tourist or business person 99% of the time.

So there is 1% chance; and why would I take even 1% chance of getting into troubled country?

The point is that it is easy to accidentally do something taboo for a random person…

I gave you two specific, recent examples of Canadians who were in China and arrested in response to Meng Whanzhou being held for extradition to the US. While she was living in a mansion they were in jail with 24 hour lighting, daily questioning for hours, and being denied to consulate officials. I'm not against China or making a political statement about their domestic policies, but I'm not oblivious to foreigners having no rights there or recourse which is certainly not the case here. As a Canadian the other frustration is this was really a US-China spat and Canada was immaterial.

This is absolute insanity; fear mongering.

You can receive funds to an Alipay account in yuan without having a Chinese bank account. Thus services like Swapsy exist to coordinate pairs of private transactions, where the other party sends USD through Zelle or similar.

Sounds less than legal.

In Canada's case, you also had the CCP essentially kidnap two random Canadians who happened to be in China as retaliation for Canada's cooperation in exercising a US warrant against a Chinese national[1].

Good luck getting any Canadian that is not a dual citizen with China to visit, especially because CCP tyranny combined with Trudeau's incompetence cost these two people almost 3 years of their lives in Chinese detention.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Michael_Spavor_an...

Just want to be pedantic and point out there is no such thing as a Canadian that is a dual citizen with China. China does not allow dual citizenship.

I went to China earlier this year.

1. My visa took less than a week. In SF, where the consulate is busier than usual.

2. This is actually better than the last time I was there in 2019. Alipay now supports international credit cards.

3. Very true. Direct flights are rare.

4. It's annoying that even Gmail etc are blocked. VPNs that worked pre-Covid don't work anymore. The only thing that reliably worked was my roaming T-Mobile connection (but slow...)

5. This was always the case at my previous employer. We were issued temporary Chromebooks that were wiped after we returned. This time, I was extra careful and took a burner phone and left my personal phone off till I got to HK.

How about China running concentration camps in Xinjiang, making China tourism morally similar to visiting Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

Here are some conjectures:

1.) There is a very high dislike of China across the world.

Large majorities in most of the 19 countries surveyed have negative views of China https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/29/negative-views...

2.) No business need to travel there. Foreign investment is down 90% this year. Literally no US/europe presence in the trade fairs in China the summer.

3.) Flights are super expensive, because of low demand, upwards of $5k-10k. travel out of China is down hugely due to the economy, you can search on youTube for videos from Shanghai airport where the airport is devoid of travelers, and filled with empty shops.

4.) It is very hard for travelers to navigate through China. No English translations in street signs. One needs Alipay to pay for anything in China, which is complicated to setup. Ethnocentrism from rising nationalism means there could be racism/violence against travelers.

I traveled to Shanghai in 2018 for business. Attitudes were mixed, but mostly impressed by the pace of development. Flights were cheap for the amount of fuel required ($1200). The (Japanese) OEM I was subcontracting for wanted to install and train the operators using the same equipment in their US final assembly plants as in the Chinese factories where the subassemblies were made. I studied the FSI Mandarin course enough to catch a few basic phrases and read a little pinyin, and I set up Alipay on arrival with a small amount of help from my host. The only shortcoming from a travel perspective was that I ran out of my (TSA-approved) travel-size deodorant and could not find Western deodorant in any of the shops.

On the one hand, it's staggering to me how rapid the pace of change against China has been. On the other hand, it was also staggering how rapidly they were modernizing and building in 2018.

Flights are super expensive because of high demand. They're limited not because people don't want to fly, but because China still hasn't fully ramped down the tit-for-tat COVID restrictions that at one point only allowed one flight per week per airline from the US to China.

That's not even true anymore, I recently bought a ticket for 1100. They don't cost 5k to 10k.

My end shows $4-9k economy, $10-12k premium.

On what time frame? I bought one for around February. Maybe if you are buying same day it's that expensive?

2 weeks out. That’s arguably a reasonable timeframe in the business world (at least, pre Xi-mageddon).

Why would I want to travel somewhere where the government thinks I, as a person from "the west", am the literal embodiment of satan?

On a more personal note I've had a family member recently return from living in China. Harassment from local law enforcement had a large part to play.

I'm sorry your family experienced that but that is not the norm, to be frank.

...Literal embodiment of Satan? What? You do realize they don't follow Christianity right? Nonsense. Overblown exaggeration.

It’s a figure of speech. Possibly poking at the fact the CCP is scared enough to be tearing down mosques/churches all over?

Shortages of Flights, Geopolitical tensions, Perception that society/government is unfriendly to foreigners.

Also starting from zero since covid restrictions.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-latest-problem-people-do...

China is fully prepared to go to war today. They have these restrictions in place to reduce complications when the war is declared.

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