Comment by jamesaurichs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jamesaurichs | Hacker News Reader

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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).

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