I can confirm that at least as of the last time I was in China we were below Beijing's radar.Also, this forum has about five active members and I suspect at least one of us is a cat walking on a keyboard. It's safe to say that we're solidly under Kremlin's radar.
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Split Chinese goverment--split from How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?
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crazyfingers
Meow
Does that mean it wasn't blocked from the local population?
I could access this board (TFT at the time) Oct 2019 when I was in Zhuhai but I was in a hotel catering to western business visitors and I could access all of my regular sites including CNN, Wapo and NYT.
I think I had read that the censors let places like that have regular internet access so that to foreign business visitors, the country does not appear to be the dictatorship that it is.
SLD
Contributor
Can ordinary Chinese citizens then use that hotel?
crazyfingers
Meow
Copernicus
Industrial Grade Linguist
I've been in a number of those hotels, and most of the people staying in them are probably Chinese and foreign businessmen who travel internationally. Ordinary Chinese citizens find that many foreign web sites are blocked, but the use of VPNs to circumvent the censorship is also widespread. That was a few years ago. I'm not sure what conditions are like today.
bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
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Is that because they mounted it on a balloon?
Exactly. I have always been able to access it from residential or internet cafe systems. Long ago the ads pulled from a related server (I forget the name) that was blocked by the internet cafe software. (And that was a royal pain as the software was buggy and would leak memory when it blocked things.)
Yeah, at higher end hotels you might have uncensored internet. These days it's mostly ordinary residential service, in the past it was internet cafes. (And back then it wasn't the Great Firewall, but software on the machines. They also weren't nearly as strict--I needed to bring my own laptop once as there were no USB ports and I needed to download a few files off an e-mail. I had my wife talk to them, they were fine with me using my own machine instead so long as I put things back when I was done--and from that point on I always brought mine as it behaved so much better without the buggy censorware. At one point a couple of passing cops noticed but they explained the situation and the cops seemed happy with it. (They knew I was a temporary visitor, I would have uncensored internet once I left so what would be gained by censoring me?) Now it's very strict, one time I couldn't sign in at a cafe because nobody on duty that day knew how to run the passport scanner and they had to have a scan every time I showed up. Note that I already had a membership card (it was substantially cheaper to buy time in bulk) that I had showed my passport to get. Note that the target market of the internet cafes is locals, not foreigners--I have never seen meaningful English and handling of foreign ID is awkward. I would say that 95+% of the use is online games, it was rare to see a screen not running a game.
AFIAK no properties are blocked to locals. At the lower end many properties are blocked to foreigners, though--there are certain rules the must comply with, if a hotel isn't set up to be able to comply they can't take foreign guests. However, more than once I've seen them perfectly willing to rent rooms to a couple of her sisters perfectly well knowing that in reality the sisters would be occupying one room and we would be occupying another. Warning: Do not do this as an ordinary tourist! You need to have an address of record for every night you are in China. It's safe for us to go under the radar like that because we always have an address of record of whatever relative we are staying with.
crazyfingers
Meow
A Visa, a letter of invitation from a Chinese national, an address of record being my hotel. I was so glad to get the hell out. There were reports at the time of westerners being essentially kidnapped by the authorities for the hell of it and held for months.
I was very glad to get all my tickets punched for the ferry to Hong Kong and then my flight to Tokyo. I don't know that I'd have been willing to go back in 2020 and 2021 if there had been no pandemic.
I've been to China four times on business. 3 times to Zhuhai and once to Beijing. The place got meaner and meaner.
SLD
Contributor
I’ve heard that too from others. It’s almost impossible to do business there. One business woman I know just told her company that she would never go back.
I very much enjoyed my several trips to China on business with some extra days adding for touristing. I didn’t have any trouble with internet or phone - including this site. I did some walking around on my own, did some hire-car excursions and traveled extensively by subway and train. I have not been there post-COVID, but I’m looking forward to some potential travel this coming year.
Foreigners essentially kidnapped?? The closest I've heard to this is if you're involved in a lawsuit you're often not allowed to leave, but you're not held.
If you didn't have any internet trouble you were staying at a place that was high enough end that you had uncensored internet. Otherwise many of our day-to-day tools don't work.
That is probably so for the hotels, we were staying in business sponsored locations. I didn’t notice any issues while walking around, though.
I mean, I believe you, since you have been to areas I would not have gone, and have been there more often. I just didn’t notice anything. Total stay time in China probably 6 weeks over 4 trips.
crazyfingers
Meow
I can't say I recall exactly. Perhaps it was prohibited from leaving but the State Department warning and other reading I did about Americans going to China made it sound more than just lawsuits but also political purposes. Certainly examples were far more high profile than me.
In any case, i'm glad not to ever need to go again.
crazyfingers
Meow
Trips i did before 2015 were fine. It's the 2019 trip that had me concerned.
barbos
Contributor
And Spy Balloon, really? in the age of spy satellites?
What were they spying on? wind direction?
What were they spying on? wind direction?
crazyfingers
Meow
My first trip was in 2007 to Beijing with a stop first in Singapore.
HP wanted me along as an industry analyst to see what they were doing on the environment and fighting counterfeits. Flew me business class all the way.
At the time the company I worked for had an office in Beijing and I had a weekend for her to show me the sights.
If I recall correctly things were not as severe in China in 2007 as they were in 2019. It was fairly enjoyable.
Me and our Chinese sales person.
Big tourist attraction
Looking for a place for dinner
Typical Asian spread
Not a cheap hotel
HP wanted me along as an industry analyst to see what they were doing on the environment and fighting counterfeits. Flew me business class all the way.
At the time the company I worked for had an office in Beijing and I had a weekend for her to show me the sights.
If I recall correctly things were not as severe in China in 2007 as they were in 2019. It was fairly enjoyable.
Me and our Chinese sales person.
Big tourist attraction
Looking for a place for dinner
Typical Asian spread
Not a cheap hotel