From what I heard Beijing and HK are generally very slow. Now yesterday I spent four plus hours reading the HK forum. Many apps were completed two to three months after medical, but the main issue seems to be the background check. If the background check is smooth its clearly faster. Some peoples background check is just a few days while others can be nine months or even more.
Background check processing already showing for me from the day i received aor1
There seem to be different parts of the background check - not surprisingly the 'security' part of the background check is completely opaque to outsiders (will be blanked out in gcms notes) on national security grounds.
Logically some present no issues and may just get a database check and/or short review. Some will take longer, possibly quite a bit longer.
Note though that those background checks are (seemingly) in parallel to other parts of processing - and may not be in HK/Beijing at all.
Im waiting for mine to be received, should be anyday now. I have a question and it sounds stupid but here goes. Do they actually mail the file in the mail or is it scanned and emailed electronically?
A small warning here: whether electronic or physical file, it may get sent/received quite quickly.
BUT: do not expect the 'file received' to get updated immediately, it may take months. It seems part of the process is not just the mail but being entered into 'registry' (in physical world) and assigning to an officer, i.e. being put in an actual queue. Whether this is done in batches or for whatever reason, it may not be immediate, and there may be no outward sign (in ecas or gckey or corresopndence) that anything is happening.
In first months of covid was certainly common and period between 'file sent to XXX office' and signs of progress or AOR2 from those offices could be long - e.g. six months. Hopefully this is not the case now but don't expect it to be immediate - the delay in showing 'received at xxx' does NOT mean that the file has been lost at sea, just how they process.