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  1. #1 Getting legal: Registering my JH600 in Shanghai 
    Senior C-Moto Guru euphonius's Avatar
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    Dec 2009
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    So much to do, so little time to post. Yes, I realize my Buckin' Bronco thread is hanging unfinished, but here's the reason why: The past couple of weeks have been consumed with getting my JH600 registered and street legal here in Shanghai, where I live. Oh, and a little ride out to Huangshan and back to continue the breaking in process... So I've got some homework to do -- finish one ride report and write another. But with quite a few Shanghai residents already purchasing big-bore bikes or planning to, I thought it might be useful first to report on how I got my bike legal. I'll see if I can do this in one simple shot and not string it out over days.

    Though Shanghai is not particularly friendly to big bikes, neither is it outright hostile. There are surely hundreds of thousands of sub-250cc bikes prowling the streets, many inside the Inner Ring Road which is subject to the stiffest restrictions but most in the huge region outside the Inner Ring. To ride legally inside the Inner Ring one must have a plate designated 沪A, rather than 沪C, 沪D or 沪E (沪, pronounced "hu\", being the nickname for Shanghai). Ride a C, D or E plated bike inside the ring and expect a 200 RMB fine. The price of this exclusive 沪A access is high: about 20,000 RMB for sub-250cc bikes and -- drum roll please -- a staggering 43,000 RMB (US$6,300 at current rates) for anything bigger, with no discrimination between Chinese and foreign-made rides.

    Here's the logic for the high price of admission: In its infinite wisdom, Shanghai has decided to limit the numbers of motorcycles in the city center, while not banning them outright. While every month there is a new but limited allocation of car plates to the general public, which are priced through an auction system, there are no new allocations for motorcycles. I've never seen an authoritative estimate of how many 沪A motorcycle plates are in circulation, but the number surely is shrinking. This is because existing motorcycle plate can be transferred over to a car, whereas it's not possible to transfer a car plate to a bike. And this explains why the price of a plate for a bike tracks that of the prevailing auction price for car plates -- i.e., 43,000 RMB in May.

    How to justify paying 43,000 for a plate for a bike that only cost 30,000? You suck it in, cross your fingers, knock on wood, burn some joss sticks and hope that the system stays intact and that when you a) sell, b) decommission or c) export your bike, you'll still have a plate that's worth at least what you paid for it, which you then can sell in the open market. This assumes there's no policy change or major alteration of the system. Like I said, it's the price of admission. Clearly a lot of folks don't think it's worth the trouble. As others have pointed out in cautionary posts, many expats are riding bikes with plates that are outright fake, or purchased illegally in other provinces (Jiangsu and Hebei being favorites), or registered in suburban Shanghai with 沪C plates, usually not in their own names because of the presumed hassle of registering a bike as a foreigner.

    There's a bit of good news here. Unbelievably, I was told that I was the first foreigner to openly and legally register a big-bore bike here in Shanghai. Ever. And it seems there is now a clear path to accomplish this. Here's how I did it:

    Because Jialing has no retail outlet for the JH600 in Shanghai, you have to purchase directly from the factory in Chongqing. After my Buckin' Bronco ride in Chongqing and Sichuan, I returned the bike to Jialing where it was crated and trucked to a forwarder out in suburban Jiading district, where we had to fetch it from a vast empty warehouse. These guys are my new best friends -- Liu Zhidong and Fan Peisheng aka Xiao Fan, the Jialing support team in Shanghai, and you'll be seeing them a lot in this thread.





    Unbelievably, the crate just fits in a breadbox taxi.



    And we unload at Xiao Fan's Changjiang 750 repair shop in Honggu Lu.



    Button up my sleeve, a wave of the magic wand (actually a 12mm box wrench), and Presto! -- it's a motorbike!















    And so here she is, safely inside the Inner Ring, replete with a nice layer of Sichuan dust! But still no plate.



    One of the reasons that expats typically opt to register in Shanghai under a spouse's or friend's name is that vehicle registration rules require that the registrant be a legal resident of Shanghai. If you are in China on a long-term assignment and have a one-year or multiple-year "Residence Permit for Foreigner" stamped in your passport, this unfortunately only establishes that you are a resident of China, not of Shanghai. What the Shanghai motor vehicle registrar is looking for is something closer to a hukou -- an explicit official statement of Shanghai residency. No, your police registration document is not enough. It only says where you live, not that you are a "legal resident". The key is something called a Shanghai Residence Card, called 申请上海市居住证 or simply B证 (B zheng) in Chinese, which most expats have never heard of, much less obtained. It's a bit of a pain to get, requiring that your employing company not only vouch for you but also present its business license and other key corporate documents. The card is issued by the Entry-Exit Bureau of the Public Security Bureau, but is processed by a strange bureaucracy called the Shanghai Human Resources and Social Security Administration.

    Here's mine, front and back.




    Here are instructions (in Chinese) about how and where to get the B Zheng:

    B Zheng application info

    Why is the B Zheng essential? Vehicle registration in China is done only in Chinese language, and, unless you are from Singapore or Taiwan or Hong Kong, your passport and residence permit are likely not in Chinese. So you need a single document that officially designates that you, John Doe and the name you use in Chinese, 张老外, are one in the same person. In my case, all of my motoring documents -- driving licence, motorcycle purchase receipt, vehicle registration, insurance, taxes, etc -- are all under my Chinese name, and the B Zheng affirms that this is the same guy wielding that foreign passport in a foreign language that is unacceptable to celestialdom.

    It took me about four weeks to obtain the B Zheng, a process helped along by administrative staff in my company. There was one setback when the sorry bureaucrats at the Human Resources and Social Security Administration rejected my company's letter of introduction because the chop was not in the proper location on the page. That added a couple of days to sort out.

    Vehicle registration is a fairly straightforward process, but you'll waste tons of time if you don't have someone to help. I actually had two layers of help -- Liu Zhidong handled the initial applications, but then when it came to actually bringing the bike to the registration authority in Pudong, we hired another guy who does this full time, and I assume keeps the bureaucrats happy with meals and other favors.

    Registration is actually a multiple-step process, involving:

    1) Identifying a plate that is available for purchase, and agreeing a price with the seller
    2) Application and approval of the transfer of the plate from the seller to you
    3) Purchasing a one-year insurance policy on your bike
    4) Passing a vehicle inspection
    5) Registering your bike under the plate that you just purchased on the open market.

    To start the registration process you'll need the following:
    1) B Zheng
    2) passport
    3) vehicle purchase receipt
    4) roadworthiness certificate (supplied by the manufacturer)

    This allows you, or your designated agent, to enter the open market and shop for a plate. Liu Zhidong did this for me by hanging around the registration center out on the Hunan Highway in Pudong.



    In late May, Liu was able to find only two available plates, and learned that almost a dozen had been snapped up by the local H-D dealer for use on the many hogs that it's been selling. The seller agreed to a price of 43,000 RMB, which was precisely the official auction price for a car plate in Shanghai in May. The seller also agreed to pick up the transfer fee, which is several hundred RMB.

    A word about the "market price" of these plates. If you are registering in a month when Shanghai allocates a particularly large number of car plates, the auction price may come down substantially. In recent years it's varied between the mid-30s and low 40s. But this does not necessarily ensure that you'll get lucky in a month with a lower auction price. Because the average in the past year has been around 40K or more, and because motorbike plate are outside of the car auction system, most sellers are likely to just wait out the low tide and not sell until a month with a higher auction price. With this in mind, I saw no reason to balk at the 43K asked for my plate. The price is what it is: a reflection of the average price of a car plate over time. Again, it's just the price of admission, and, with any luck, you'll get it back later and maybe with some appreciation.

    How is the transfer handled safely with so much money involved? The motor vehicle authority licenses a number of escrow agents who mediate between buyer and seller, which is important since motorcycle registration is subject to approval. So we placed a 10K deposit with the escrow agent, who also held my passport and B Zheng and also the license permit from the seller, while we submitted the transfer to the authorities for approval. This took about four days. Once the transfer was approved, I paid the balance to the escrow agent who handed over the license permit and my documents. Meanwhile we purchased an insurance policy.

    While registration is centralized in Pudong, vehicle inspection can be done at many locations around the city. We did mine at the Minhang station. Because I still didn't have my driver's license, and no one else wanted to take the responsibility of riding it there, we had to transport the bike. OK, how to fit a big thumper into a breadbox taxi?



    You pull off the lid and lift it in. No pix of the lifting, since the photographer was among the lifters. At 200kg the Jialing is no featherweight, but it lashed down nicely.





    "Motorcycle inspection please enter here."



    Given the heavy rain, we begged the inspectors to do their inspection in the back of the taxi. No luck.



    Lord knows what all these tests where, but the law's the law, so we had no choice but to comply.







    To prevent people from registering multiple bikes under a single Vehicle Identification Number, the inspectors require that you paint your VIN with vermilion ink and take an imprint on a piece of cellophane tape, which is then pressed onto the inspection form like a tattoo stencil.







    And so we prepare to hoist her into the taxi one more time.



    Not a lot of inspection going on today.

    Last edited by euphonius; 06-19-2010 at 09:36 AM.
    jkp
    Shanghai
    2010 JH600 "Merkin Muffley" (in Shanghai)
    2000 KLR650 "Feezer Ablanalp" (in California)
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