And let's discuss on some facts too. https://x.com/Graceli253372Li/status/2085117821218902185
I'm not the mainland China citizen. I'm Taiwan (ROC) citizen. I took a connecting flight from Lisbon, Portugal, through Abu Dhabi, then layover in Shanghai, China, before heading back to Taipei, Taiwan. Since I bought a single through-ticket, I received all my boarding passes back in Lisbon. That meant at Shanghai I took the international transit channel and didn't actually enter Mainland China. I was standing in a long queue along with a bunch of foreigners (non-Asians). When I reached the check-in desk, I showed them my Republic of China (Taiwan) passport, but the officer demanded to see additional documents. I know Mainland China doesn't recognize our passport, so I pulled out my Mainlander Travel Permit to show him, even though theoretically, since I wasn't entering Mainland China, I shouldn't have needed it. In the end, it turned out the guy was just a rookie. After consulting his supervisor, the supervisor immediately gave him a loud earful, asking if he was illiterate and couldn't read Chinese characters (since my Taiwan passport is written in Chinese, after all), and ordered him to let me through right away. Fortunately, most people in that line were foreigners who didn't understand Chinese, so the rookie officer didn't completely lose face.
The core issue is this: if someone from "Greater China" really wants to fly to Taiwan through China, they need to be fully prepared with all the complex cross-strait documentation, just like I was. I haven't entered Mainland China since 2019, but even when my Mainlander Travel Permit expires, I always renew it and keep a valid one on hand, even if I don't plan to use it. I understand the complex reality that cross-strait relations are not a standard country-to-country relationship. Meanwhile, those die-hard Taiwan independence supporters refuse to get a permit out of principle, and then turn around to blame Mainland China the second anything goes wrong.
