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  • Carl [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    13·
    11 hours ago

    Do they give it back when you leave the country? genuinely want to know.

    edit: okay I looked it up and the law says (using ai translate cuz I cant read chinese)

    运输、携带、邮寄国家禁止进出境的物品进出境，未向海关申报但没有以藏匿、伪装等方式逃避海关监管的，予以没收，或者责令退回，或者在海关监管下予以销毁或者进行技术处理。
    “Where prohibited items are transported, carried or mailed into or out of China, if the person did not declare but did not use hiding/disguise to evade customs control, the items shall be confiscated, or ordered to be returned, or destroyed/technically processed under customs supervision.”

    so in theory they might send it back, but every single news article about this indicates that they get destroyed, so that seems to be the “in practice” reality.

    • darkcalling [comrade/them, she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      6·
      9 hours ago

      Where it says returned it means if it’s being imported commercially. For example you order such materials by paying and some company ships them to you directly, they get stopped, customs may exercise the option to order them returned to sender via whatever courier they were being sent by. For individuals they’re not going to hold your stuff for you and bother making sure it gets back to you, it gets destroyed. More than likely such a provision mainly applies to other prohibited goods, say good faith attempt at importation of something for commercial purposes which is technically prohibited but valuable may be sent back rather than destroyed.

    • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      9 hours ago

      so in theory they might send it back, but every single news article about this indicates that they get destroyed, so that seems to be the “in practice” reality.

      I’ve only had stuff seized in Australia but when you think about how many thousands of people transit through each customs checkpoint daily (and how many people just bring stuff without really thinking about it at all) it would be a huge logistical challenge to track and return things. As I understand it, at the time I could have taken a receipt and paid a lot to try and get the things released but they were blatantly illegal so I was never keeping them. For the most part everything that isn’t significant enough to result in fines or criminal charges just goes in a big bin off to the incinerators.

      I suppose it would also be just ethically/morally/legally inconsistent for the government to ban something but also facilitate its distribution as you depart. So yea I doubt this happens in practice except at large commercial scale.