> Another solution is to just live in ShenZhen when it's applicable. The city is nice and vibrant, and you are treated pretty well as long as you don't get into politics.

That's an extremely subtle way of saying "keep your mouth shut".

It's not. You can freely talk about other topics. In fact, talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud. I think it is the same for all countries I have lived in. Talking about politics is always taboo.

What the fuck are you smoking? You must be a non-Western person.

"Talking politics is probably safe as long as you are not too loud."

and

"Talking about politics is always taboo."

Hahahaha. That's not the airtight argument against "a subtle way of saying keep your mouth shut" that you apparently think it is.

>Talking about politics is always taboo.

Not around where I am, at least withing the various circles I talk to. It can be hard to avoid, even. (to be fair, I live in a city which is relatively an outlier on the political spectrum compared to the country as a whole)

> Maybe you can source from ShenZhen in person but I'm not sure how the Custom office deals with this. I guess it's OK as long as you don't bring in quantity.

Historically this was true, because the de minimis exemption meant small value imports didn't get charged tariffs. But the recent tariff EO both increased existing tariffs AND removed de minimis, meaning even a $5 import now needs to go through the overhead of tariff calculation and payment.

The de minimis change is temporarily paused because there's no way carriers or enforcement could actually handle the change in tariff volume with no warning, but broadly speaking, the low value direct import route is going away.