Cartepostale's experience looks promising.
We've been looking into riding in China via some local Chinese contacts and their advice does seem rather at odds with some of the 'frustrating' experiences discussed here. Riding in China does undoubtedly require some careful forward planning and a lot of bureaucracy, translation of documents, form-filling, time-wasting, etc. However, our contacts went to quite a lot of trouble to check out the situation regarding temporary import and licensing of foreign motorcycles and their riders. It would appear that it is possible and - strictly speaking - guides are no longer necesssary except for certain sensitive areas or where there is political unrest. Unfortunately, as our contact says, as with all things Chinese, rules are often made up as they go along and not applied impartially. We know also that there are some (official) rule changes regarding travel in China that were due to come into effect this year, but I'm damned if I can remember where I read this.
In a lot of instances, I would hazard a guess that travellers, having no local contacts and no knowledge of Chinese, are simply being conned by unscrupulous border officials into parting with their cash. But we shall see ...
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