This chapter investigates the development of the Pearl River Delta's ‘upstream’ check-in system: a network of ferry terminals that allows passengers in Mainland China who fly via Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) to bypass Hong Kong's customs and immigration procedures. Located deep inside Guangdong province, these terminals cater to passengers whose movement across international borders is limited by their income or citizenship: Mainland Chinese tourists, for example; as well as traders from Africa and the Middle East. At the upstream terminal, travellers print their boarding pass, check their luggage, and proceed through Chinese emigration. A ferry then takes them across the border to HKIA, where they are shuttled via an underground train that takes them directly to their departure gate. Isolated from other passenger flows, these travellers technically never enter Hong Kong.

Focusing on the check-in terminal in the industrial city of Dongguan, the chapter argues that the PRD's upstream system originated in the late 1980s thanks to a partnership between local officials and overseas Chinese entrepreneurs who could trace a common ancestral connection to the same village or township in Guangdong province. While these installations initially aimed to abet the transfer of capital and industrial expertise from Hong Kong and Taiwan into Mainland China, more recently they have been appropriated by a much wider range of passengers who are travelling to Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East.