Especially for those holding both a Chinese and a foreign passport, departing from Shanghai Pudong Airport is getting harder and harder. A friend called me from Pudong Airport. She holds both a Chinese and a Swedish passport. Her Chinese passport should, in principle, have been canceled, since she acquired Swedish nationality later on. She used her Chinese passport to buy a ticket from Shanghai Pudong to Stockholm. The airline asked: your Chinese passport has no Swedish visa, so how are you going to get there? She then produced her Swedish ID card and said, look, I have a Swedish ID card, so I can enter Sweden. But this time the airline changed its stance, saying it was no longer acceptable — you can't use a Swedish ID card to prove you have a visa to go to Sweden. She retorted that it had always been this way before. Previously, whether departing from Pudong or from Hong Kong, she had used her Chinese passport to buy a ticket to Sweden. When it came to verifying the Swedish visa, she would just show her Swedish ID card to the airline or border inspection. But this time the airline staff at Pudong Airport insisted that they could not issue a boarding pass based on a Swedish ID card — she had to have a Swedish visa. Left with no choice, she produced her Swedish passport, which nearly caused trouble. The airline said: if you have two passports, do you want to explain it to border inspection, or should I call border inspection over to directly review your situation and figure out what's going on? Just when she was at her wits' end, the airline agent finally showed some mercy and told her: here's what you can do — use your Chinese passport to buy another ticket to a third country. For example, Singapore, or Dubai — those countries are visa-free. In the end, she voided the ticket for the direct flight from Pudong Airport to Sweden, used her Chinese passport to buy a ticket to Singapore, and then used her Swedish passport to buy a ticket from Singapore to go home. So now, for those holding both a Chinese and a foreign passport, leaving directly from Shanghai Pudong Airport is much harder than before. As for which third countries to transit through, you'll have to decide for yourself.
This kind of situation actually involves a conflict of nationality and consistency of documents. Airlines check visas or proof of residence according to the destination's entry requirements. Strictly speaking, this is not a new rule—it's just that enforcement has become stricter.