Doing my annual thing of renewing my work permit and RP. Because I am myself 50%+ of the administration in the company, I do the employer side stuff too.

When starting a new work permit application on employer side, there is now separate option for "foreign spouses of Chinese citizens". I have not seen this before.

I'm not using this (I can just renew my old application), but it might suggest eventual relaxation of employment rules for foreign spouses.