Salary split across multiple contracts

HIGH

What happens

Your real salary is paid in pieces: a low 'official' salary on the Chinese contract, plus a 'non-compete fee', plus an offshore service agreement. Only the small on-paper number is your legal salary — which silently cuts your social insurance, severance and tax basis.

✅ How to protect yourself

Ask what number appears on the employment contract versus total take-home. If they differ, ask which base is used for social insurance and severance.

Real cases (1)

chinalifer/chinalife · Smaller Jiangsu City · 2026

the employment contract only says 4,000 "salary" plus a 6,000 "non-compete fee," and then a separate service agreement with some Singapore company pays me another 6,000 as an independent contractor for the same teaching job

¥16,000 total, but the legal Chinese salary is only ¥4,000.

source: open the original post

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Built from public teacher discussions. Every figure shows its sample size.
Not legal advice · sourced from self-reported forum posts · contract check tool