Not when I went there. I needed a lot of paperwork for the visa at their embassy, and to surrender my passport for a few days, and a signed statement from my employer that I was not a journalist of any kind.
I got in. I was sent to some form of secondary screening, but they apparently couldn't find anybody who could speak English, so they just let me in.
Edit: I'm from a rich western country, in case it matters for anybody getting an understanding of who gets treated what way.
I did get a weird interaction in China fwiw. Let in fine but at one point i sat down to have lunch at a restaurant and 2 English speaking police officers sat down at my table and started asking if i was doing well etc. I just chatted making sure not to say anything negative about the government, talked about tourist sites and they left, they were fine, no issue. Just a weird interaction.
I guess it's a routine part of China's paranoia. They definitely do do weird things to check if tourists are causing trouble in some way i guess. I imagine that sort of interaction alone would scare off trouble makers and it's probably effective honestly.
Contrary to common belief, it's fine to say negative things about the government in this case, as long as you are not Chinese. They may argue with you (or laugh at you for some even weirder reasons) and you both may have an unpleasant conversation, but that's it.
> I guess it's a routine part of China's paranoia. They definitely do do weird things to check if tourists are causing trouble in some way i guess.
I’m guessing you actually did something suspicious or illegal without realizing it.
A common and simple example of this is taking pictures where it’s technically forbidden — airports, military buildings (these aren’t always obvious to visitors), religious sites, etc.
Another example would be interacting with a person of interest. This could be a Chinese person that they are watching, or a foreigner that they are keeping tabs on (e.g., embassy staff that they suspect of being an agent).
As a tourist, you probably wouldn’t notice these things or even be aware that they are a red flag.
I don't recall them asking for any social media at any point. But I don't have Facebook, tiktok, instagram, snapchat, grinder, myspace, or other muggle social media.
I of course wouldn't know if they tried to find my profiles.
BTW not having profiles on mugg^W normie social media may be sometimes considered a red flag by itself, so I keep e.g. a reasonable Facebook profile, without posting anything.
YMMV but at least for US entry just listing GitHub (it's one of the options in the ESTA application) hasn't caused any "random" inspections for me so I'm not sure how much of a flag it really is on its own.
I got in. I was sent to some form of secondary screening, but they apparently couldn't find anybody who could speak English, so they just let me in.
Edit: I'm from a rich western country, in case it matters for anybody getting an understanding of who gets treated what way.