alt Hacker NewsYa, that’s whack. Even the police/hotel thing isn’t really that strict, it depends on the locality…
People think China is authoritarian with effective central control. The first part is right but the second part is far from the truth. China is a bit more lawless than the average western country.
One time the ID check I got was a super old photo copier and the resulting (paper lol) image was basically unrecognizable. Hotel receptionist was like "not my fucking problem, oh well, welcome to the hotel"