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China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#21
post #6

Looked into the taxes: for regular employees there are 7 brackets. Anything over 80,000RMB (12320 US Dollar) is taxed at 45%. Though it looks like if your income is derived by a company outside China, and you live there for >=1 and [1] https://www.ecovis.com/focus-china/individual-income-tax-iit...

Chinese taxes are a bit higher than the states, but note that is an all inclusive rate (federal, local). There are also many ways to get some income tax free for foreigners via special exemption (say around 10%) so it is only a bit more than USA taxes in the end (I filed the foreign tax credit form way too many times so have done the math a lot).

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#22

Hearing all the negative stuff about China recently, like the online censorship, dictatorship, stories about people not caring about human life, like hearing it's common that if you accidentally drive over people, many will backup to finish the job so they wont' have to pay the insurance for rest of the life and seeings stories like babies on the streets and nobody caring, why would anyone want to work in China? Are…

The car thing is true, but it is more prevelant among the blue trucks. One of my friends lost a father this way. However, it isn’t that common. Sometimes you’ll encounter some guy in the middle of the street lying down waiting for someone to help them, who they will then accuse of causing them to be hurt in the first place...chinese law and police just aren’t developed enough to avoid these kinds of scams. However, it isn’t super common anymore, and you have to find a grizzled expat to bear these stories.

For the most part they are just stories you talk about in a bar. It won’t effect you personally, not like the air pollution which finally convinced me to leave.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#23

Hearing all the negative stuff about China recently, like the online censorship, dictatorship, stories about people not caring about human life, like hearing it's common that if you accidentally drive over people, many will backup to finish the job so they wont' have to pay the insurance for rest of the life and seeings stories like babies on the streets and nobody caring, why would anyone want to work in China? Are…

We probably hear mostly about the sensationally negative things the most because they drive clicks. The same could be said about all the negative news coming out of the US. Why would anyone want to move there? And yet they do, and many thrive. I'm sure China is thriving, despite its problems.

> Why would anyone want to move there?

Apart from chasing money and career, there are ridiculously few reasons to move there. Extreme hostility from official places (visa issues all the time, no citizenship), utter disregard for human rights on many levels of society, very bad air on most big cities where you end up living in 100% of the cases. I could go on and on and on.

If you want a south asia experience, places like Singapore or Kuala Lumpur are much much better.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#25

Hearing all the negative stuff about China recently, like the online censorship, dictatorship, stories about people not caring about human life, like hearing it's common that if you accidentally drive over people, many will backup to finish the job so they wont' have to pay the insurance for rest of the life and seeings stories like babies on the streets and nobody caring, why would anyone want to work in China? Are…

I can recommend a YouTube channel from a couple Westerners who have lived in China for years and share their experiences about it, https://www.youtube.com/advchina -- the slightly older of whom is http://youtube.com/serpentza who lives in Shenzhen. They tackle a lot of the issues you bring up. China is very protective of their immigration, and unlike the US, it's impossible to get the equivalent of a Green Card or be…

The apartment thing...it’s very rare. Most likely to remind you to register at the PSB, I was always late and warned a few times, they never tried to fine me or anything. They aren’t really “checking” on you, honestly I’ve had worse experiences in Switzerland than China where they really do check on you (like the television tax guy entering my apartment to check that I really didn’t have a TV!).

Beijing was actually more lawless than the other first tier cities. The police are kind of paralyzed when they could easily pull over someone with enough guanxi to end there careers.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#26

How does this work along with their plan to limit city population? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/26/chinas-shangha...

There are so few foreigners in China relative to locals that they barely budge any population statistics.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#27

Hearing all the negative stuff about China recently, like the online censorship, dictatorship, stories about people not caring about human life, like hearing it's common that if you accidentally drive over people, many will backup to finish the job so they wont' have to pay the insurance for rest of the life and seeings stories like babies on the streets and nobody caring, why would anyone want to work in China? Are…

I've lived and done a fair amount of business there. The car thing is true. I would say people there care a lot more about their immediate network of friends / family and a lot less about anyone else. It's very safe to live there, but at the same time everyone's trying to take advantage of everyone else - literal and metaphorical pickpockets are everywhere. The inherent lack of trust makes workplace environments real…

to be clear, white foreigners are treated like minor celebrities.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#28

> Visa holders will be allowed to remain in the country for up to 180 days at a time So Nobel prize winning academics can visit China. I'm rather less excited by that than when I read the headline

Anyone living in the West who looks down on certain US politicians for their anti-immigrant sentiments but is fine with China's state enforced ethnic nationalism might want to stop and think deeply as to why.

It's essentially impossible for a Westerner to gain anything more than a temporary visa, even if they marry a Chinese citizen.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We probably hear mostly about the sensationally negative things the most because they drive clicks. The same could be said about all the negative news coming out of the US. Why would anyone want to move there? And yet they do, and many thrive. I'm sure China is thriving, despite its problems.

The problem is best illustrated with things like road deaths. If you look at road deaths for China, it’s something like 20 per 100k people per year vs maybe 2-3 in the UK. What that means is, statistically China is 8-10 times “worse” than the UK. Does it mean you’re going to be seeing car crashes everywhere all the time? No. Does it mean China’s road safety is much worse? Yes. Things are much worse in China in a vari…

If we instead go onto crime;

If you look at violent crime we have 6 times more robberies, 4 times more murders and 18 times more gun crime in the USA compare to China (per capita)

Does it mean you're going to be seeing people getting shot everywhere all the time? No.

Does it mean general safety in the US is much worse? Yes.

Things are much worse in USA in a variety of meaningful respects. Does that mean it's impossible to live there? Not at all. Well, if you can stand having Trump as the president of the country you live in.

Re: China offers 10-year visas to 'high end talent'

#30

Hearing all the negative stuff about China recently, like the online censorship, dictatorship, stories about people not caring about human life, like hearing it's common that if you accidentally drive over people, many will backup to finish the job so they wont' have to pay the insurance for rest of the life and seeings stories like babies on the streets and nobody caring, why would anyone want to work in China? Are…

I've lived and done a fair amount of business there. The car thing is true. I would say people there care a lot more about their immediate network of friends / family and a lot less about anyone else. It's very safe to live there, but at the same time everyone's trying to take advantage of everyone else - literal and metaphorical pickpockets are everywhere. The inherent lack of trust makes workplace environments real…

yup, I've heard many stories of expats turning around and leave the second they found the internet frustrating, which is strange that they didn't do their homework before coming.

Also, the food I found ok; lack of variety (hot pot, shaokao, dumpling, repeat), and no good international cuisines. You can also get safer Chinese food in Taiwan or Los Angeles. As for weather, it's usually made worse by pollution. And recently, foreigners have been treated with disdain by locals because of nationalism.

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