Hello @surfclub66, Canada Post suspended mail to Russia and Belarus shortly after the invasion of Ukraine. Interesting that USPost hasn’t; especially, as you indicate that mail from you to those countries isn’t getting through.
We have had a Russian suspension since the invasion as well. Belarus was suspended, lifted, and recently re-imposed.
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No doubt China Post is still in the process of clearing backlogs, and apparently in a not-so-chronological order. On the other hand, we have to realize that it is also a result of the address assignment mechanism that more postcards are traveling (and most likely stuck in a processing center) to China than are due for the users. Nothing can be done to speed up postal services, but it seems less so with the rules of quotas and address assignment.
What we’re really dealing with here is not the backlogs per se but our dissatisfaction/frustration and/or waste of money due to long travel times or non-registration. Even though China is suspended on the main site, some people continue to send postcards to China through private swaps while others hold off. Similarly, it’d be good to have this sort of flexibility for official postcard exchanges. One idea that can be gleaned from the discussions above is a separate category of slots for destinations that aren’t postally reliable where different rules apply.
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But why are you trying to create another system? We already have two systems - one for people who want to send to postally unreliable countries (tags and swaps), and one for people who prefer not to send to postally unreliable countries (officials). Too many categories will make it unwieldy and hard to manage and program.
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And isn’t that the very definition of discrimination? 
And how do you categorise? Where do you draw the line of “reliable”? How many people would complain of whatever rationale is chosen to draw that line?
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Just to mention that what we really doing is trying to deal with the problem of Postcrossing system caused by the cards keep being expired one after another. Without the suspension, if one postcard is stuck in the processing center, it will cause one card to get stuck every 60 days. Overstock brings no benefit either for the Postcrossing system or for the users and China post.
If there is a option on the official website, the worst result is that few users will check it since most of the users wouldn’t send a card that probably won’t reach the destination. (According to the statistics, obviously there is much more users who cannot receive cards than those who can.) So I am afraid that we shouldn’t do it to cause more questions.
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Somewhere, far back in this thread, a member said they went to their post office and picked up mail being held there, instead of waiting for it to be delivered. Is this an option for all Chinese members? If eveyone picked up 6 months worth of mail and registered all their cards it might help. Has this been discussed on the Chinese language forum? Just wondering…
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It’s probably this earlier post.
No, it was June’s comment from about a week ago that caught my eye
Last time I went to the post office, I saw cards sent from foreign country (one of them is sent in January) to other receivers who shares a same address with me. They probably don’t know the situation of “ go to the post office to take our mails by ourselves”.
(Sorry about formatting, not sure how to repost a comment)
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Here’s the other post.
Hi! 
Because that the branches of China Post are not so professional, the measures they took are different in different areas. Even the “stopping the delivery” policy seems only works in my city (and the “sending no notification” policy also does 
). Some delivery branches themselves also has no information about the policy (That’s my local branch… They kept to tell me that there wasn’t any import mails to me these days until I went to the superior department and find my cards there. If the user who lives in my area went to the branch, he/she probably got nothing.) In other cities, the receivers may even not have the right to take their mails away by themselves.
By the way, I believed that most members who are using the forum can receive their mails as usual. That means the policies (which are different in my city and other cities) didn’t influence this lucky minority. (And maybe that’s why some users yelled at the suspension…
) So the appeal of “going to post office and bringing your mails home” on the forum may not work. And due to the lack of broad and efficient collectives, we cannot connect with most of the members who are scattered all over the country and have no information.
So in my opinion, the suspension is still the most helpful way to face this situation until it is gets better.
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Good news for me - a postcard I sent to China in February was registered last week. Because I don’t have a printer, and am not well enough to sit up and concentrate on writing Chinese characters, I always use the English option for the address. I had thought there was very little hope of my postcards to China ever being registered given the current situation, so I’m thrilled that it was received.
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Same here: a postcard sent to China on the 22nd of February was registered today after a journey of 169 days (with an enthusiastic hurray message by the receiver). 
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I was thinking why not let people have both on the official site too if fewer “systems” are better. Extra slots for when there are postally unreliable (slow) destinations. Most likely users have already classified fast and slow destinations. When we draw an address, we have a general idea if it’s going to arrive soon or late. So it seems that such extra slots may be more compatible with the status quo.
I’m aware that any deviation from exisiting or easy-to-implement practice would inevitably require a huge effort so I’m no longer requesting or expecting any change to be made. Just exploring how it will or won’t work if an alternative happens to be in place.
As with where to draw the line, the very suspension here serves as an exemplar. China is a special case because the user group is big, and because official announcements by China Post are elusive, if they ever exist and are timely and accurate. So I’m thinking what if China wasn’t suspended but was instead put on a slow track, or now that the suspension is a done deal, what if China is restored on the slow track instead of straight away back to the normal pool. Personally, I don’t think it’s even a problem for China to stay in this category forever.
In that metaverse, extra slots become available for those postally unreliable or slow destinations. They may come with a longer expiry duration. They don’t encroach on existing slots, but if one takes the risk and the card does get registered, it still contributes to one’s sent total. Frustration due to unwillingly being locked in with a generally slow destination, or waste of money, is likely to reduce. On the other hand, the recipient can also choose whether to let their address be drawn using the existing inactive option – better off than being suspended altogether. For the system, official data continue to trickle in for monitoring purposes, contributed by those who choose to send to and receive in China.
p.s. I’m aware that any deviation from exisiting or easy-to-implement practice would inevitably require a huge effort so I’m no longer requesting or expecting any change to be made. Just exploring how it will fare, and whether or not it is fair on the whole, if an alternative happens to be in place.
Hi! I want to share some new information about the below thing I mentioned before.
Yesterday I went to check the mailbox again. There isn’t card to me, but there is one to a user who shared the same address with me. The letters and stamp are blurred so I can only recognize the date and original country of sending (Feb.21 from Japan). But I found there is a piece of paper stuck on it - that’s from my card (from Russia) which I took home by myself in May!
You can see the scar on it. That piece of paper is the very torn part on the card. That means her card from Japan arrived in China before May and be put on my card from Russia. Then it spent a lot of time at someplace alone until it was delivered this month.
But, the receiver seems has left this place for several months before that the card was finally delivered after the stop of delivery. She probably couldn’t receive and register it. 
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That’s what I’m worrying about. Even they start releasing chinese address,if the user had left the address and don’t use this site anymore. New cards still won’t be registered. Maybe a new round of address blocking starts🙃
The place what I mean is my address. She was here before but she moved out. I believe that she is still in Postcrossing now though she didn’t receive this card which she could receive several months earlier.
Many users I know just sign up, sent some postcards, and forget to check their mailbox (since checking traditional mailboxes is not a routine for most of people here unless they are waiting for something), or lose their interest. Some new users refuse to register cards they don’t like because they know little about the rules or just ignore those. The slow post system and the stop of delivery makes it worse.
And I believe that postcrossing system can distinguish between the effects of the large-scale delivery stop or of a few of users who leave their address.
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If the person has not accessed the site for more than one month, the address won’t be given out. So that’s not a problem.
If they changed address the cards will be lost and this is even more reason for the current block, to avoid having so many cards travelling so long that the recipients have left their address.
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