I've also heard that getting many financial products (e.g. credit cards) in China is very difficult without citizenship, and Chinese citizenship is virtually impossible to acquire by naturalization.
Recently, they've started new laws and process for foreigners to get permanent residence (green cards), which would allow foreigners to do everything that citizens do, including even buying apartments. Not sure what the uptake is though, and the requirements are pretty strict.
They’ve been talking about green cards for foreigners for as long as I was there (2007), every year it will be different this time, every year it isn’t.
More to the point: green cards are so rare most Chinese institutions don’t know what to do with them. They don’t actually help that much beyond just getting into the country.
Buying an apartment is usually just subject to residency restrictions whether you are Chinese or a foreigner. Beijing requires that you’ve paid Beijing social security taxes for 5 years if you don’t have hukou, which equally applies to non-Beijing Chinese.
