Your bit about taxis seems hard to believe. I haven't been in China in around 15 years, but there are still tons of foreigners visiting China for business reasons, and they need to get around. Requiring them to jump through these sorts of hoops to merely ride in a taxi seems a bit unbelievable.
Granted, sometimes the business we were visiting would send a car to our hotel, but not always, and not when we were going out on our own. Is cash still accepted by taxi drivers? That's how we usually paid when visiting for work.
I haven't traveled to China as a tourist since around that same time, when we (again) paid cash when taking taxis. China presumably (at least, pre-pandemic) still gets a lot of tourists, and it again seems unlikely that the only way a tourist can take a taxi is to get a random local to vouch for them, and/or an ability to open a local bank account.
Normal taxis exist and you can get them called in by your hotel or whatnot but from the few experiences of using them, they require payment in cash or alipay and some of them refuse cash becoming extremely confused why you can't alipay for the taxi.
They're also way less convenient. Try calling for a taxi when you don't even know how to recognize a taxi advertisement, never mind finding a taxi company where the staff speak English in a non-major city. In Shanghai it's not hard, but try something off the beaten path and you'll seriously struggle. In fact, outside of Shanghai I struggled to find anywhere which would accept payment with anything other than cash or Alipay/Wechat (sometimes you weren't even able to use cash).
I was in China for business reasons, I needed to get around. Jumping through hoops was the name of the game.
Granted, sometimes the business we were visiting would send a car to our hotel, but not always, and not when we were going out on our own. Is cash still accepted by taxi drivers? That's how we usually paid when visiting for work.
I haven't traveled to China as a tourist since around that same time, when we (again) paid cash when taking taxis. China presumably (at least, pre-pandemic) still gets a lot of tourists, and it again seems unlikely that the only way a tourist can take a taxi is to get a random local to vouch for them, and/or an ability to open a local bank account.