I’ve long wondered why Hong Kong hasn’t made a stronger effort to open up driving into China. Or perhaps they have and the intransigence is only in the Chinese side.
When we owned our Porsche 911 I looked into getting a special “Black Plate” a number plate that lets you drive into China. But it was a hassle verging on impossible, as David says above.
We’ve been driving in China with a rental vehicle, but we had to take a driver. You can’t self drive. To rent a car yourself you have to have a Chinese drivers licence. It’s as if you landed in London and the car rental company tells you you need a UK licence — sorry, your international licence no good! And you have to go into town to take out local insurance. It’s crazy. And not as if China is trying to protect some standards that are higher than elsewhere; they’re not.
I went on a trip around Guangdong a few years back with the Hong Kong Classic car club. Was great fun. I shared the driving in a 1960 Mercedes 600. There’s plenty to see and we ended up at the Daya Bay Nuclear Power station where we had a guided tour around by Michael Kadoorie, owner of CLP which part owns and operates the facility. Michael is the Patron of the HKCCC.
My point being that there is a lot to see but difficult verging on impossible to get there in a way that you can do in the rest of the world — hiring a rental car.
Or driving your own from Hong Kong. What possibly could the mainland fear from Hong Kong cars coming into the mainland? Apart from the fact that we are right hand drive, where China is left-hand drive. But then we were able to drive right across Africa, Cape Town to Cairo, going from one side of the road to the other and did it without (major) hassle. If they can do it in Africa why not China?
My guess is it’s the bastadry of petty minded Leninist apparatchiks. Probably as simple and stupid as that. Otherwise, I don’t get it.
