I voted you down, because difference between legal and illegal immigrants is so clear in most jurisdictions both in China and west, and you called it splitting hair.

As such, my vote had nothing to do with neither racism or language abilities of anyone, but your line of thought which I strongly disagreed with. It was not a complaint about China or Chinese, but about your comment.

I'm not sure what that is about, but there is a difference between illegal immigrant, and a refugee whose status (and often a level of healthcare) are guaranteed by laws of the respective country.

@Dazzer: "my first focus is the health care i can get for me and my family"

Can't argue with that.

However, there are two thresholds in play here.

One is, that with stable and decent income (especially if you have experienced the kind of public "free" social welfare that some western countries provide) you stop worrying the healthcare of yourself or your family - it becomes given. You may worry about health, and maintaining it, but not about the care you'd receive.

Another threshold, relevant to your last sentence ("them what makes the decisions also prioritize their own first") is how far you can go with that until you get social instability. China is still governed by many ideas of the revolution, in good and bad.

@janjal: Hope this all makes you feel better about your health here.

Not so much feeling better about my health, but my bank account - knowing that the state aggressively prevents prices from inflating too fast.

I'd return this to the earlier argument by someone suggesting the health doesn't make anyone happy. Yeah, money doesn't either.

That said, I do have an international health insurance (excluding USA) with option to evacuate elsewhere when treatment is not available locally.

But that is about money, not health.

If I'd describe my feelings about the health here, it's not so much my health (and sorry to say, none of the expats who voluntarily come here), but those locals who don't have much choices.

I've been to a state-funded hospital in Changning county (hotspot for tobacco production in Yunnan), where the patients and their guests smoke their state-funded cigarettes outside the in-patient rooms, in the toilets, and in the elevators.

I had the opportunity as I was funding last week of my late father-in-law in terminal care when he was dying to lung cancer.

Best you can do is to go visit the main BOC office on Beijing Lu, and ask.

I have not heard of such new limitations. But also have not tried to open new personal bank account since coming here years ago.

I'm pretty sure foreigners (not only students, but those working and living here for example) need a bank account, and as such I think your experience of Hunan sound suspicious.

If you are on 10-year visa, that's still a visa (as opposed to residence permit of any kind), and rules may of course be different for such visitors.