China is taking the piss

[nakamura]

So I am back in China since three days. Next month is the Canton Fair and I am here to prepare for it, visit some factories and finally go to the fair. Maybe also some travelling.

Now here is the thing and the reason of this title. They seriously removed Mastercard and Visa from most of the payments. I went to Adidas, Nike, Zara and some other foreign shops, can’t pay by Mastercard or Visa anymore. I checked their chinese online shops, also can’t pay with them. So basically a foreigner NEEDS Unionpay or a chinese bank account, Wechat pay or Alipay.

Next thing, which now completely freak me out and which is ABSOLUTELY unacceptable in my opinion: It seems they are blocking/restricting foreign devices from having a good internet connection. Sounds weird? I brought my Playstation 4, iPhone and Macbook (all bought in Germany). The Wifi connection (china telecom) is extremely bad. By that I mean its not stable at all. One moment 10mbs another moment 50kbs download speed. Basically its useless. Here is the thing: Chinese friends who sit next to me, use an iphone and macbook (bought in China) are having 60mbs download speed. We even test it at the same time, same app (speedtest). The difference is huge. How is this even possible? My devices are not broken or anything like this. Never had any problem in another country as well. I even called a guy from china telecom and he said its all alright, its the problem of my devices....lol.

Wtf is going on

 

[bartosimpsonio]

Interesting update. Thanks for sharing.

The trade war gonna be a mess.

We take for granted having things just connect. But it wasn't always like that. Back in the day each country was different, credit cards weren't global, nothing was global, each place had their own rules and you'd have to buy currency and stuff to use locally.

Then came globalization and all of a sudden we expect to find a mcdonalds or visa/mastercard sign in the jungle in cambodia.

Now with this new closing of markets we'll go back to the days when there was no globalization. Personally I think it's interesting shaking things up a bit, but it's gonna be different now. We shouldn't take global markets for granted.

This will have major implications for IM and online business too.

 

[lovefishin]

experienced the same... I have no proof but here is what I suspect. When I purchased a sim card they copied my passport and registered my sim as a foriegn customer... I believe this triggers the telecoms which are all state owned by the way, to put me on some kind of internet activity monitoring system. They cant track the billion Chinese but they do have and will track all activities of foreigners. I would suggest two options

can try a VPN or have a chinese friend purchase a sim card for you... oh one more thing....... in the hundreds of second hand cell phone shops they will sell you a sim card.. rates are terrible compared to buying direct from the big telecoms but still cheap compared to what you pay in Germany.

 

[Leowill008]

welcome to china

 

[underground-rap]

About the payments, sounds super weird to me, even though I am not well experienced with chinese factories. Aren't they accepting Bitcoin? Maybe that could be a win for you.
Better watch out that they don't spy on your private stuff. I don't think that they reduce your internet speed, they probably just check out what you are doing. I recommend a VPN.
Go for Perfect Privacy, it is one of the best working plus anonym VPNs out there and cheap too. Cascading via several VPN servers is the key.
For example: choose an entry point in your country and the VPN network in another country.

 

[Pergamon]

This has a lot to do with the firewall. Sites like facebook and apps like whatsapp don't work in China.

The payments are weird but seem incredibly convenient for locals. Nowhere accepts cash!

Makes for a funny experience the first time you go.

 

[Kapfenberg]

dude , you are visiting a communist country, what do you expect lol?

 

[JohnMichael059]

Strictly no POLITICS .... LOL

 

[Sizus]

Wow. I would never visit that s***** country. So stupid.

 

[drilonnn]

So I am back in China since three days. Next month is the Canton Fair and I am here to prepare for it, visit some factories and finally go to the fair. Maybe also some travelling.

Now here is the thing and the reason of this title. They seriously removed Mastercard and Visa from most of the payments. I went to Adidas, Nike, Zara and some other foreign shops, can’t pay by Mastercard or Visa anymore. I checked their chinese online shops, also can’t pay with them. So basically a foreigner NEEDS Unionpay or a chinese bank account, Wechat pay or Alipay.

Next thing, which now completely freak me out and which is ABSOLUTELY unacceptable in my opinion: It seems they are blocking/restricting foreign devices from having a good internet connection. Sounds weird? I brought my Playstation 4, iPhone and Macbook (all bought in Germany). The Wifi connection (china telecom) is extremely bad. By that I mean its not stable at all. One moment 10mbs another moment 50kbs download speed. Basically its useless. Here is the thing: Chinese friends who sit next to me, use an iphone and macbook (bought in China) are having 60mbs download speed. We even test it at the same time, same app (speedtest). The difference is huge. How is this even possible? My devices are not broken or anything like this. Never had any problem in another country as well. I even called a guy from china telecom and he said its all alright, its the problem of my devices....lol.

Wtf is going on

Well, Alipay accepts Visa and Mastercard, so just register an Alipay account and insert your card.

 

[nakamura]

I went to China many times and never experienced this kind of “firewall” where it would devices based from what country they are from? It is definitely super weird my chinese friends sit next to me, logged in the same Wifi, speedtest on the same app and their speed is 10x more than mine (i dont use VPN when do speedtest). Not only on the phone.

About Mastercard and Visa: This is something new. Three months ago when I last visited China I could use my Mastercard to pay.

And no, I dont think China is a communist country anymore. Officially yes, but the people here are all capitalist, wanna earn as much money as possible. In a communist country companies like Alibaba, Tencent or Huawei wouldnt be possible.

 

[IamNRE]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism


no visa, no facebook, no google, no ebay/amazon, no devices made outside of China ....
as long as you use things made locally then you'll be fine (and probably spied on).

 

[KamBhai]

In some other news, Indian market is booming right now.
Sensex +2100 up today
Many American companies are now moving their manufactioringfrom China to India.
However, share market going up is due to huge cut in corporate tax announced by FM today.

 

[nakamura]

Well, Alipay accepts Visa and Mastercard, so just register an Alipay account and insert your card.

No, they dont accept foreign bank cards or credit cards. At least cant pay with them. I tried it all. Not working. Need a chinese card.

 

[drilonnn]

No, they dont accept foreign bank cards or credit cards. At least cant pay with them. I tried it all. Not working. Need a chinese card.

Try the international website of AliPay: https://intl.alipay.com/

 

[NirvanaWolf]

Wow. I would never visit that s***** country. So stupid.

Well, they're not dying to have you either lol. Their country, their rules. As simple as that.

 

[iamsolo]

Dude. Govt controls who shits when in that country. China is not a democracy. Dont expect things like net neutrality. Just exchange bunch of your currency for chinese currency. No troubles.

 

[humandog]

dude , you are visiting a communist country, what do you expect lol?

You can't serioulsy think that China is a communist country just because the CPC has communist in the name. Authoritarian, sure, but it's not the same.

Although I wanted to visit China I don't think I will in the foreseeable future. They are known to install spyware on your devices when you cross the border, uploading everything you have (at least its hashes) and checking it against a database of "unwanted content". I'm guessing that your throttling is just another part of their monitoring. Did you have to hand in your devices at the border?

 

[augustwu]

Well,I am local Chinese and like you guys doing marketing here
For example,you guys think Instagram botting always banned your account
But for me, the network always banned me to connect the Instagram
Few days ago,BHW blocked surprised me,at first, I think another social media site banned which makes don't know what to do on the internet
But this country run as its own way,I don't think foreigners can understand its culture
There are still many people making muck money between China and outside China
For example,I know someone sells local China information to Wall Street
and someone sells Austria, EU house to the Chian wealthy people
There are still chances to make money if you stand between the western and eastern.
That's the reason why I am here ,keeping learning and I want to be the one between western and eastern, make large money

 

[nakamura]

I do respect China, its culture, the people and so on, but I think its going in a very weird direction.

Having the "great firewall" and blocking Facebook, YouTube etc. even Tinder is no news, but now removing Mastercard, Visa, don't let foreigner use Wechatpay or Alipay probably?

You see in what direction it is going? Not in a good one, not an open one.

And right now I came across something super crazy. I checked into a Airbnb and the only way I can open the apartment door is by uploading my passport picture into a third party app and everytime I want to open the door I need to scan a QR code and take a picture of my face. Wtf?! So basically this 3rd party company now got all my data (passport, face recognition etc.), they exactly know when I am inside the apartment and so on. This is absolutely crazy