German here. I had to go through a 3-month process with multiple, personal visits to the Chinese embassy in Frankfurt to be allowed one-time entry to China for a couple of days. Visa fee was 120€, IIRC.

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, it's China, a country known for its heavy surveillance. They're not gonna let anyone in just like that.

[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yeah. I heard I even got preferential treatment because I got invited by my cousin's wife's family to attend the wedding.

Also the roaming fees were insane. I still have the pricing information message:

Translation: Welcome to China! Here, you can receive calls for 1.59€ per minute + possibly at least 0.50€ per minute (depending on carrier), send text messages for 0.59€ and receive text for free. Data roaming for 12.29€ PER MEGABYTE (automatically capped at 59.50€ per month) may be possible. Good travels wishes o2.

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

This means they estimated that 60€ was the cutoff before people that rack up MBs without thinking about roaming fees start seriously complaining when seeing the bill.

[–] MossyFeathers@pawb.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Huh, according to another reply, German passports are supposed to be more powerful than a US passport. Maybe that's not taking into account visa requirements though. No idea if a US passport would have the same issue with China either. Thanks for sharing your experience!

[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

China probably isn't on the list for visa-on-arrival for any country. Whether the process and the attached fees differ according to where your passport is from, I don't know. I assume that is the case tho.