Beijing - Post Report Question and Answers
How do you send and receive your letters and package mail? Are local postal facilities adequate?
Embassy employees have access to DPO. China Post and western private shipping companies are adequate, although any private shipment is potentially subject to censorship/monitoring by the host-country government. - Nov 2024
The DPO and pouch are available, though they take a long time. The mailroom staff are very professional. - Nov 2021
Diplomatic mail service - Nov 2020
DPO, when airlines are running. For local shipments, you can always use the local Kuai Di drivers. - Aug 2020
DPO. - Jul 2020
All DPO or pouch for the Embassy. You could use local mail, but we didn't. Shipping and buying items from Taobao and similar offline is super cheap and delivery is fast and cheap. - May 2020
DPO but it goes through Hong Kong, adding an extra week to the process. Three weeks to get things from the US and three weeks for packages to get to the US from Beijing. - Nov 2019
U.S. postal services at the embassy. - Oct 2017
DPO at the embassy. If you get packages through int'l mail you have to go to the international post office which is a ways away from the embassy, but pretty easy to figure out once you get there. - Dec 2015
via work. - Apr 2015
DPO. - Aug 2014
We have DPO and Pouch here. - Jul 2014
Though the embassy - Jun 2013
We use the diplomatic post office (DPO) inside the embassy. No experience with the local postal system. - Aug 2011
Be careful... stuff you ship can have some major duties tacked on. It cost me $200 to get my repaired computer back. Also, a colleague had teacher resources held up for months in customs. - Apr 2011
The company has a lot of people traveling back and forth to headquarters so I usually send things back with colleagues to mail, or have them bring me things when they visit. The local mail is inexpensive, honest and reliable, but you have to go to the post office in person to mail packages. This takes a long time because post offices are very busy (like everything in Beijing). - Jan 2011
Embassy DPO. - Apr 2010
Letters are fine. Parcels are subject to surveillance for banned literature etc. - Jan 2010
