There are some fields where employment opportunities have not changed. I've met quite a few foreign researchers (beyond teaching English) in Kunming, many working in fields related to biology and environment. If anything these opportunities would have increased in recent years.

Others working in trade, in particular from countries not so much affected by US relations, and quite possibly worse CoVid-19 situation at home than even USA.

Not so much industry in Yunnan, but many with stable income in coastal cities may have relocated semi-temporarily to Kunming to weather the pandemic.

Not sure if stemming from new regulations or stricter enforcement of old ones (increased enforcement likely being part of the new regulations anyway), but our kid's kindergarten is changing some things for the term starting next week.

These small changes have probably little impact on foreigners' teaching opportunities in China, but they can perhaps shed light on the policy changes on ground level in Chinese families.

Firstly the pickup time is extended from 17 to 18, basically adding one more hour to the kindergarten day - without extra cost, probably because they were told to do this after families had already paid for this term. Next semester the prices may increase, but on the other hand authorities want to to reduce financial burden of families, so maybe not.

Reasons cited include better conforming to laws on work/rest times, and serving the dinner meal to children closer to the time that they would normally eat dinner - previously there was a meal served before exit at about 16:30, now it will be 17:30.

Some other reasons mentioned include delaying the pickup after worst rush hour, and something about "second treasure, third treasure" - which I can only interpret as giving families more time to care for their hopeful second and third children.

So I would say that there is a wide range of small changes happening, in various levels of raising children here.

@tiger: " trend over the last 10 years for more 'schools' to offer extra-curricular activities, mainly sports,"

I believe the question is about the trend of last 1-2 months of policy changes that ban these 'schools' from providing profitable education in English or other core subjects.

It is not a matter of getting a lucrative English teaching job and doing sports coaching or whatever extra few hours on the side. The side dish is now sold as the main meal.

Real schools are of course another matter.

Also, work permit renewal assumes that you renew it for your existing employer. Changing employer is applying for new work permit from the scratch, and even if you are in China already, the new employer has to document and show the need to hire you as well.

You can, in some jurisdictions, avoid getting work visa if you are already in the country, but you will still need a new work permit tied to the new employer.

For anyone still struggling with passport change, I believe in AliPay (at least, could be in WeChat too) the health app automatically refreshes itself every X days (2 weeks maybe), requesting user to input address and other info again.

At that time it also pulls the current (new) passport number from the main AliPay account. Doing anything manually probably does not help unless that internal refresh happens to take place at same time.

In Alipay you can probably find the QR code reading tool? Use that to read the QR code at subway or any place you see one, and it will direct you to install the mini app into Alipay - think you have to fill in some more personal details at that time too.