Ports of Entry (PoE) are mainly composed of physical markers and facilities indicating the boundary and signaling national sovereignty, custom agents, and other relevant inspection departments of the State (migration, quarantine, etc.).
They are generally located at transport terminals (交通港站) entering and exiting the country, and form an institutional and economic complex with the local relevant departments and industry units.
As of 2024, the relevant agencies include the National Immigration Administration's China Immigration Inspection for migration inspection; the General Administration of Customs is responsible for customs, excise, and duties; for contraband and prohibited goods interdiction; and for health, animal, and plant quarantine.
[b] The China Maritime Safety Administration is responsible for ship inspection and ship health certification, China Civil Aviation Authority for airplane inspection, the State Administration for Market Regulation for commodity inspection, quality testing, and food testing; the Ministry of Agriculture for the fishing vessels registry (中华人民共和国渔业船舶检验局),[9] and many other state organizations each with their own remits.
Finally, the service system includes banking, insurance, shipping agencies, supply, warehousing, seafarers' clubs, etc.
[8]: 11 。 The China Association of Ports-of-Entry (中国口岸协会 CAOP)[10] is a national comprehensive association with independent legal personality, approved by the Ministry of Civil Affairs and supervised by the General Administration of Customs (GAC).The leading members of the Association are composed of relevant personnel from the GAC, Ministry of Public Security, Ministry of Transport, China Railway, Civil Aviation Administration of China, plus other central departments and important local port of entry authorities.
[11] The Ming and Qing dynasties, guided by the idea of "naval defense over commerce", had a long history of closed-door policies, closing ports, removing population from coastal areas, and forcing foreign traders into specific, limited ports (the Canton factories).
This changed abruptly after the Opium War in 1840, when China was forced to open five ports of entry to foreign commerce: (Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai).
[3]: 388 Due to political reasons, most land ports were opened with socialist countries, and foreign trade was mainly in the form of barter and aid.
[8]: 12 In 1978, the volume of foreign trade goods entering and leaving the country through the Class I ports was 70.33 million tons, and the total value of import and export trade through the various types of ports was 20.64 billion US dollars, with 5,658,000 passengers entering and exiting the country, and a total of 325,000 ships, planes, trains, and cars).
[16][17][18] As of 2016, the People's Republic of China had a total of 75 Class I highway PoEs, including 9 international ports of entry open to Hong Kong and Macao, and 64 international or bilateral ports[d] to land-adjacent countries, in addition to 1 temporarily open PoE.
[4]: 37 Notes: Those PoE marked with "*" are bilateral border crossings, which allow the passage of persons, goods and means of transportation of both neighboring countries only.
Huang Shengqiang, director of the State Ports Office of the GAC, explained that due to the definition given in the law, a port must have "direct entry and exit", so it is not possible to give inland railway stations full PoE status.
The next step will be amending and improving the legislation on ports of entry to cover inland areas.
For inland railway ports, the immigration and customs clearance of China Railway Express trains from/to Europe is conducted for the moment at the national border (i.e. the border crossing ports of entry in the previous section).
The exception is that the immigration and customs clearance of passenger trains to and from Hong Kong is conducted at the inland railway stations of either departure or arrival.