Yep, pretty common for different zoom levels to be different time points. ACME is using plane photography for its high zoom images. You could try zoom.earth for hourly/12hourly satellite imagery.
Did a scientific project there. It was a whole thing. The local/city/regional CCP branch was not cooperative with even the most innocuous low altitude drone data gathering from foreigners for ecology studies, despite sponsorship by local & national universities.
There is even a random-geometric-distortion obfuscation layer that you have to apply to maps you're allowed to serve up publicly while doing business in China, like one of those distorted mesh grid paintings. Takes in WGS84 and spits out a nonsense projection a hundred meters away.
They don’t make the relevant laws but can be punished by higher authorities for breaking them.
Unless it could be legally guranteed any potential punishment would be transferred to your team’s shoulders, it’s bizarre to expect someone else sitting in some municipal office to take the risk.
Probably thousands even in some random small city.
I’m guessing no one on the team had ever coordinated even a thousand people before on some complex legal issue. So it’s just bizarre to suddenly expect anyone capable of that would do so on their behalf and reach out with invitations…
Other places could have a helpful bureaucracy, or one that ignores the laws, or accepts bribes.
It’s not like someone could accidentally board a flight to China and clear immigration by happenstance, or without being informed that things may be very different from their home country.
It’s not even a guarantee of getting the relevant visa in time, that’s true for every big country I know of.