Next time I visit China, how can I participate in economic activity while at the same time maintaining some degree of privacy?
Whenever China opens back up and I have a chance to visit, I have to figure out what I'll do regarding the device(s) I bring and how I will be able to pay for purchases.
I got hacked by a man-in-the-middle attack one time when I visited China years ago (a fake intermediate login screen popped up when I did a remote login session to my US computer, and it was only later that I realized what that was about), and China's abilities to intrude have probably only grown exponentially since then, so I'm weary of bringing any devices to China. For example, I'm concerned at the airport they'll ask me to unlock my iPhone and then take it into a back room and I'll never know what they did. Or maybe they'll just hack into my iPhone some other way without me having any idea that it happened. It's not that I have anything particularly sensitive to hide, and it's not that I have any delusions about my privacy being already highly protected in general even in the US, but still I don't want to be naive or in denial about the subject either.
I suppose I could just bring some sort of basic cheap smartphone that I don't normally use at home, but since I've heard that cash is rarely used in China now, I think I would still face the challenge of how to pay for stuff. Are foreigners able to do payments with Alipay and WeChat, and if so, could I do that with a some soft of cheap phone instead of bringing my iPhone to China? Do those apps have all kinds of privacy shortcomings? If I install them in the US, do they have better privacy protections, and if so, are they fully usable in China? Also, should I be worried about my password getting hacked when logging into my email?
I appreciate input from people who live in China or have experience dealing with these issues when traveling to China (presumably pre-pandemic).
Thank you. |
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