LJH, awesome FAQ that deserves to be a sticky, whatever that means.

Of particular importance, especially if the concept is universal, is your explanation about the lifespan of the plate. This is the first time I've heard it definitively asserted that the legal holder of a plate may retain ownership of the plate after mandatory scrapping of a bike (subject to applying it to a new bike, of course). This casts our pricey Shanghai plates in a lovely new light; assuming I keep riding for many more decades, I can amortize the price of the plate over much more than the 11-year legal lifespan of my JH600, and not worry that if, say, I sell the JH after five years that the plate will have lost a portion of its value because it's closer to its "use by" date.

In other words, under the scenario you've painted, the pricey plate can happily continue to appreciate even as the bike depreciates. A very happy thought!!

Now if we could just get the same assurances about the 70- or 90-year "land use rights" that underlie any real property that we purchase here in the Chinese-characteristics paradise! (Not that it will matter to me personally, given the current actuarial realities...)

Also, on the subject on universality of these plating rules, given that our plate "pricing" here in Shanghai seems to be fully market based, via monthly public plate auctions, I will assume that none of this nonsense about having to keep a plate registered to a particular bike for three years before transferring it to another bike applies to us down here. I've never heard of such a thing and, in fact, ryanjpyle successfully sold brother Colin's MKRide F800GS and its plate to separate buyers in separate transactions after less than one year of ownership. No one batted an eye at that, and both bike and plate commanded a healthy market price.

Seems our Chinese characteristics are more subtle in the endless city.

Thanks again!!

Cheers!