. It simply this . The Chinese CAAC has two lists. List A countries and list B countries. List B countries are not able to meet the required security background checks required by the Chinese CAAC. I.e they do not trust the police clearances given by the local authority or the licence background checks given by the local aviation regulatory body. In Sa I believe it's the CAA? Obviously the Chinese have experienced/discovered some fraudulent pilots or inadequacy in the South African governments security checks that they do not trust. This is a new development as recently there were a few saffers at Jade Cargo. My Mrs is a Saffer and its sad to see this discrimination continuing all as a result of the incompetence of the Sa government. Just like the UK visa issue. Exactly the same reasons , the UK government had to deal with too many fraudulent passports etc and subsequently people overstay etc etc that that had to institute some sort of control. Again due to Sa civil service incompetence. When my poor wife has to apply for a passport renewal from abroad she has to wait up to 6 months for it to be issued by a foreign Sa consulate. Whereas I get mine renewed in a week at the max. We have many Saffer friends here and having flown with many of them it is really unfair to see how internationally things are actually getting worse. Lets not even look at whats happening domestically.
Only hope is for the press to get hold of this and try to pressure the Sa gov to up its act and hope for change. But that's for the optimists. Sad state of affairs.