In Frankfurt it takes a quarter of an hour to get out of the plane through passport control and baggage claim onto the street.
It takes four hours on the return to Shanghai until the traveler is finally sitting in the government bus without a passport after surveys, Covid test and filling out four questionnaires about the travel history of the last two years.
Then the quarantine hotel is waiting.
Hendrik Ankenbrand
Business correspondent for China based in Shanghai.
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Anyone who hears the heart of the second largest economy beating through the thin walls in the state-assigned isolation room for the next 14 days can consider themselves lucky. For almost two years, China has only allowed 200 flights a week into the country, 98 percent fewer than before the pandemic. Even most business travelers do not get a visa. Economy seats quickly cost 5,000 euros and are almost impossible to get hold of at short notice. Anyone who does not provide their vaccination with the name, address and telephone number of the vaccination doctor before departure or who violates one of the constantly changing rules, remains on the ground even with a ticket.
As America and Europe open their borders, China continues to isolate itself from the world.
President Xi Jinping told his counterparts this week that he will not be taking part in the G-20 summit in Rome at the end of October - after all, when he returns to Beijing, he will otherwise have to be in quarantine, which is required in the capital for three weeks.
A domino effect
There is actually a lot to talk about with the leader of the country that will drive the global economy like no other in the next five years.
The International Monetary Fund predicts that one fifth of global growth will come from China during the period.
But that could be too optimistic.
As a result of Beijing going it alone, global trade is currently facing a stress test that could also be dangerous for Germany.
It's about more than the isolation in the shabby hotel room in Shanghai, which puts the body and mind to the test. The fact that cold meals land in front of the door three times a day and that rooms and beds are not cleaned for two weeks should hardly deter foreign investors from carrying their money into the country, as the prospect of good returns still beckoned there. But the Chinese market, to which there was no alternative in the past, is suddenly considered unattractive. The country is facing stagnation that could last for ten years, believes Oxford economist George Magnus, former chief economist at UBS and China expert. Even a “recession with Chinese characteristics” is possible.
In the short term, it is the housing giant Evergrande, the fall of which could trigger a quake in the Middle Kingdom, whose shock waves can reach the factory halls of Volkswagen, BMW and Daimler in Germany, where profits from the world's largest car market finance the collective wages of German employees.
Whether Evergrande, which is in debt with over 300 billion dollars, collapses or is absorbed by the government before it hits the ground, could no longer be decisive.
Like dominoes, one competitor after the other is already threatening to tip over.
At the beginning of this week, another developer from China, Fantasia, no longer serviced its debts.