Health, safety and scams in China

China is a low-crime destination and most trips pass without incident. The realistic risks are mundane: stomach trouble, a traffic accident, a petty scam, altitude on a plateau itinerary, and losing a passport.

Tap water and food safety

Tap water is not drinkable anywhere in China. Drink bottled water or water that has been boiled; the official visitor guidance states this flatly, and it applies in hotels too. Hotel kettles are standard.

Choose places that are busy and cook in front of you, prefer freshly prepared hot dishes to anything sitting out, and be cautious with fruit from street stalls unless you peel it yourself. If you have an allergy, carry it written in Chinese and check ingredients rather than assuming; cross-contact with nuts and sesame is routine in small kitchens. See the food and etiquette guide for how to do that in practice.

Travel insurance

Insurance is not required to enter China, but it is strongly recommended, and the practical reason is cost rather than law. Treatment at good urban hospitals can be expensive for a foreigner paying out of pocket, and evacuation from a remote area such as western Sichuan, Yunnan or Tibet is expensive under any circumstances.

Buy a policy that explicitly covers medical treatment in China and emergency evacuation, and keep your insurer’s assistance number somewhere that does not depend on mobile data.

Hospitals and pharmacies

Urban public hospitals, and the international or VIP clinics attached to some of them, are the usual choice in major cities. English-speaking staff are far more likely at those clinics, and in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, than elsewhere. For anything urgent, go to the nearest hospital rather than the best one.

Carry a card in Chinese listing your blood type, chronic conditions, allergies and the generic names of your medicines, and check before you travel whether any of your prescriptions are restricted in China. Bring medicines in their original packaging with a doctor’s letter, in personal-use quantities.

Payment: expect to pay in stages. Registration, consultation, tests and medication are often separate payments at separate windows, and foreign cards are not reliably accepted at smaller hospitals. Alipay or WeChat Pay bound to an international card, plus a cash reserve, is the dependable combination; both are covered in the payments guide.

Pharmacies are marked with a green cross, and chain pharmacies in big cities may manage basic English or a translation app. They are not a substitute for a doctor. Bring what you are likely to need rather than relying on buying it there.

Emergency numbers

• 110 police
• 120 ambulance
• 119 fire
• 122 traffic accidents

These four are well established. Two further numbers appear in secondary sources but should be treated as unconfirmed: 12308, described as a consular protection hotline, and 12345, a civic services hotline. Do not rely on either in a genuine emergency. The more useful numbers for a visitor are the police on 110 and your own embassy or consulate, whose address and phone number you should save offline before you fly.

The common scams, and how they work

Scams aimed at tourists are rarely violent. They rely on a friendly approach and a bill you cannot dispute.

• The tea-house hustle. Friendly English-speaking strangers, often posing as students, invite you to a tea tasting. The tea is ordinary, the bill is enormous, and pressure follows. The same pattern exists with “art student” exhibitions selling overpriced prints.
• Black taxis. Unlicensed cars at airports and stations quote three to eight times the correct fare, sometimes with a rigged meter. Use the official taxi rank or a ride-hailing app.
• Rickshaw and “short tour” traps. A cheap ride or tour that detours to commission shops, or ends with a demand for far more than the quoted price.
• Counterfeit notes as change. Fake ¥50 and ¥100 notes passed when you pay with a large bill. Check change before leaving the counter.
• Swapped payment QR codes. A sticker that redirects your payment. Confirm the merchant name in the app before confirming.
• Fake Great Wall and city tours. Cheap coach tours that spend most of the day at jade, silk or pearl outlets. Book through official channels.
• Weight-and-price traps. Dried fruit and nuts priced per unit of weight, weighed generously and charged at a price you did not agree. Ask the total before it is bagged.
• Bar bill inflation. Drinks added, or prices that change between menu and bill, in bars that solicit custom on the street.
• Fake apps. Imitation VPN and payment apps from unofficial sources. Install from official stores only.

The general defence is unglamorous: use licensed transport and official ticketing, agree prices before consuming, and walk away from anything that feels rushed.

Air quality, traffic and terrain

Air quality varies by city and season, and is worst in the north in winter, when heating coincides with still air. Northern cities can have poor days; coastal and southern cities are generally better, and summer is usually clearer than winter. Check a live reading rather than assuming, and carry any respiratory medication you need.

Traffic is the most likely cause of a serious injury on a normal trip. Look both ways even on one-way streets, expect scooters travelling against the flow and on pavements, and use official taxis or ride-hailing rather than unlicensed cars, which are also the ones most likely to be uninsured.

Terrain matters on the classic itineraries. Great Wall sections and mountain paths such as Huangshan and Zhangjiajie involve steep steps, uneven stone and sudden weather. Wear shoes with grip, and turn back rather than press on in fog or a storm. Cable cars do not reach the wall surface.

Altitude is a genuine risk at Lhasa (about 3,650 m), Shangri-La (about 3,300 m) and on Tibetan plateau extensions. Build the Yunnan route from low to high, Kunming to Dali to Lijiang to Shangri-La, to acclimatise gradually. Symptoms include headache, nausea, breathlessness at rest and poor sleep; the correct response to worsening symptoms is to descend, not to push on. Travellers with heart or lung conditions should take medical advice before booking a plateau itinerary.

If you lose your passport

This is an administrative problem rather than a safety one, and the sequence matters.

1. Report it to the police and obtain a written report. You will need it for everything that follows, and 110 is the number to start with.
2. Contact your embassy or consulate as soon as possible. They issue the emergency travel document that lets you leave the country, and processing takes time.
3. Ask about an exit permit. Immigration authorities generally need to authorise departure on a replacement document, so plan for an extra step.
4. Keep a copy. A photograph or photocopy does not replace the original for travel and hotel check-in, but it makes the replacement process far faster.
5. Adjust your bookings. Hotels, trains, flights and timed attraction tickets are tied to passport details, and most will need rebooking rather than amendment.

The handling of overstays and their penalties is a separate matter, and we have not been able to confirm the commonly quoted fine figures against an official source, so check the position with the exit-entry authorities rather than planning around a number. What is not in doubt is that you should leave before your permitted stay expires, from an open port, with your passport and entry stamp.