A welcoming city, but do big companies care about expats?

It’s nothing new that Shanghai is the most welcoming city for foreign expats in all of China’s mainland. But there are some niggling issues — little oversights, I like to call them — that companies keep falling into which unnecessarily make our lives that little bit more difficult.

Shanghai was this year crowned the number one city for expats, for the sixth year in a row, based on factors such as job opportunities, ease of life, safety and transportation. That’s in keeping with this city’s recent history where foreigners in Shanghai not only spent their lives here, but also left an unmistakable mark. 

One of those iconic marks would have to be the iconic Park Hotel which, in its heyday, was the tallest building in the “far east.” The building’s designer was Hungarian L. E. Hudec, who designed more than 60 buildings in Shanghai during the three decades he lived here.

Today, between 6 and 7 million foreign tourists visit each year, 69 countries have consulates here, and the city is home to about 175,000 foreigners. But this is a huge city so, while that number sounds significant, it only accounts for 0.7 percent of the entire city population.

While living here is super convenient and, in many ways, much more advanced than my home country, there are still some niggling oversights companies are making that seem to go against the goals and ambitions of Shanghai’s government in welcoming, attracting and retaining foreign talent. Just one recent example is this week when Alipay announced that Shanghai residents will be able to pay to ride on more than 1,300 bus routes and 10 Huangpu River ferries using the ubiquitous digital payment system.

That sounds great, I thought, but when I went to try I found that Alipay is demanding I enter my Chinese ID card details into the system in order to use the service. Naturally, I don’t have a Chinese ID card, and it’s impossible to add a passport number (even though they already have it.)

When Shanghai Daily contacted Alipay about the problem they said that theoretically ID shouldn’t be required to use the system at all. They acknowledged the problem but offered no short-term solution. I still can’t use my Alipay to ride buses and ferries in Shanghai.

A similar situation occurred in June with WeChat payments, although it was quickly remedied once the company became aware of the issue. But why did they need to be made aware of the issue in the first place?

You might also remember back in January when QR payments first became available on the city’s Metro system. It was a huge thing, and Chinese passengers lined up at the limited turnstiles featuring the new technology just to try it out. Pretty soon they were installed all across the city, but foreign residents of Shanghai were forced to wait months until the service was available for use. 

Another niggling issue comes up when trying to buy certain imported products online — it doesn’t matter which platform you use, attempting to buy certain products will come up with an error message telling you that purchase is impossible as a non-Chinese ID holder.

“Go and find a Chinese friend to help you buy this product,” an automated message will often tell you.  

Some of the products I tried to buy included health supplements and chocolate TimTams from Australia. I found that I can go through unofficial personal sellers online, such as daigou (personal importers), instead of buying from legitimate online stores, but that leaves me open to the possibility that what I’m buying isn’t legitimate. 

I could go on, but I won’t bore you. 

I think the problem simply comes down to oversight — the number of foreigners living in Shanghai and China is exceptionally small, especially when compared with Western countries. According to the latest figures, the overall registered population of foreigners living in China is just 0.04 percent, and in Shanghai that climbs to 0.7 percent. 

That means that companies, in my opinion, are simply overlooking the inclusion of foreign residents here as they program and set up new features and services, like allowing QR payment on the Metro, Alibaba payment on buses and ferries, and so on. 

I get it, 0.7 percent is a tiny number and clearly just a drop in the ocean for huge companies like Alibaba, Taobao and even Shentong, the operator of Shanghai’s Metro.

But while these issues may seem like small things, they certainly add up. 

The Shanghai government aspires for this city to become even more of an international metropolis than it already is, which, according to the government’s 2035 master plan, means becoming an “excellent global city” by 2035.

This, without a doubt, involves attracting and retaining foreign talent who are interested in setting up their lives here and helping further achieve that plan. 

So why, then, are companies still constantly overlooking the foreign residents who already live here, and those who will come tomorrow and next year and the year after that? 

It should be a standard requirement that when new features and technologies and services are rolled out, they are available from Day One for all residents of this city, whether they’re originally from Shanghai, other parts of China, or other parts of the world.

Looking after the 0.7 percent might seem a burden for some of these huge companies, and it may appear to be not worth the extra effort, but doing so must be part of their practices if Shanghai is going to achieve its goals of welcoming and retaining foreigners to live in the city.