When you open a bank account you’ll be issued a Union Pay national credit/debit, but this will only work at ATMs and online places that accept Union Pay. If you have an international credit card, you can apply through your Chinese bank for a credit card here. The accounts will be linked together so that if you skip town, they’ll withdraw the balance from your other card. Alternately, if you have a long-term lease or own a house, you don’t have to have an international credit card.

Bank of China issues a foreign currency credit card for use outside China only.
Great for on line purchases from abroad.

If all else fails and you really need a credit card, take a sum of money e.g. 10,000 rmb to the Bank of China. Put it into a timed savings account (one year deposit). Then you can write a statement that, if you default on the credit card, the bank can take the money from the deposit account.

It sounds like a prepay credit card but is actually not that at all. The two accounts are separate and the money in the savings account only acts as a guarantee. If you handle the credit card as you should and make the necessary payments, it will have no influence at all on the deposited sum. Of course, if you withdraw the deposited money early, the bank will stop your credit card facility. Usually, after a period of time (maybe the one year term for example), the bank will allow you to withdraw the savings and carry on using the credit card anyway.

After much frustration, this is the method I used to get the credit card. The bank will normally set the credit card limit at around 80% of the deposited sum. The credit card I was issued with is good for payment in China (RMB) and abroad in any foreign currency. I recently visited Indonesia and had no problem withdrawing Indonesian Rupiah from an ATM or using it for POS transactions when paying for things.