As Thomas alludes to: the main impediment is not accepting western credit cards. Travel in China almost requires a Chinese phone and WeChat account to pay for things.
If one wants to engage, it really does require a Chinese phone. E-sims are still not officially allowed in China. There's no such thing as a burner phone. All the visitors I encounter have nothing but trouble for at least 3-4 weeks trying to straighten out their phone stuff, after which they either get a Chinese phone or go back to where they came from. I was just at CLI in Guilin for 8 weeks, with every newcomer student having problems with their phone stuff. VPN is also a continuing issue, but there are a couple that just plain work.
Once you have a Chinese phone # and WeChat and Alipay accounts, you can link those accounts to your Western credit card. WeChat doesn't charge a card fee until you get up over 200元，after which it's 2.75-3% or thereabouts, and big ticket items don't go through on WeChat, but they do on Alipay. I don't know why.
After getting connected, it all gets remarkably easy and fun, but unfortunately, the vast majority of visitors aren't going to do that. Someone should start a business supplying phones to tourists... :-)
A step in the right direction, but more could be done to make airlines and hotels accept payment from foreign credit cards via Alipay. Some still don't accept that option.
Credit cards have to be linked to an Alipay account, but if it's not a Chinese phone with the old style Sim chip linked to a Chinese number, it usually doesn't work. E-sims don't always (never seem to) work, and they're not "approved" anyway.
It's good to have greater social intercourse with the rest of the world but China's problem for visitors is after the usual attractions there isn't much to do apart from eat and shop. The less famous places are difficult to get at and are overrun with domestic tourists and retail tat. Then there's the disappearance of the internet that the rest of the world uses. If you have cheap roaming or eSIM you can get around it but tourists relying on hotel Wifi will be left wondering why their apps and services are blocked when Chinese people face no online limitations when they travel abroad. Visitors can see China is modern; they also see how repressive and boring it is.
As Thomas alludes to: the main impediment is not accepting western credit cards. Travel in China almost requires a Chinese phone and WeChat account to pay for things.
If one wants to engage, it really does require a Chinese phone. E-sims are still not officially allowed in China. There's no such thing as a burner phone. All the visitors I encounter have nothing but trouble for at least 3-4 weeks trying to straighten out their phone stuff, after which they either get a Chinese phone or go back to where they came from. I was just at CLI in Guilin for 8 weeks, with every newcomer student having problems with their phone stuff. VPN is also a continuing issue, but there are a couple that just plain work.
Once you have a Chinese phone # and WeChat and Alipay accounts, you can link those accounts to your Western credit card. WeChat doesn't charge a card fee until you get up over 200元，after which it's 2.75-3% or thereabouts, and big ticket items don't go through on WeChat, but they do on Alipay. I don't know why.
After getting connected, it all gets remarkably easy and fun, but unfortunately, the vast majority of visitors aren't going to do that. Someone should start a business supplying phones to tourists... :-)
A step in the right direction, but more could be done to make airlines and hotels accept payment from foreign credit cards via Alipay. Some still don't accept that option.
Credit cards have to be linked to an Alipay account, but if it's not a Chinese phone with the old style Sim chip linked to a Chinese number, it usually doesn't work. E-sims don't always (never seem to) work, and they're not "approved" anyway.
It's good to have greater social intercourse with the rest of the world but China's problem for visitors is after the usual attractions there isn't much to do apart from eat and shop. The less famous places are difficult to get at and are overrun with domestic tourists and retail tat. Then there's the disappearance of the internet that the rest of the world uses. If you have cheap roaming or eSIM you can get around it but tourists relying on hotel Wifi will be left wondering why their apps and services are blocked when Chinese people face no online limitations when they travel abroad. Visitors can see China is modern; they also see how repressive and boring it is.
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