Why can bitcoin trade at different levels on different exchanges? Some reports suggest it was trading at $3000 on some Chinese exchanges. Why cannot these prices be arbitraged?

tpredictor 

Why can bitcoin trade at different levels on different exchanges? Some reports suggest it was trading at $3000 on some Chinese exchanges. Why cannot these prices be arbitraged?

Each of the exchanges have different procedures to authenticate the person who is selling,
even up to to the point of rejection a customer...

Buying Bitcoin is easy
Selling Bitcoin is difficult

when both legs of the transaction are not smooth, arbitrage because more difficult
and the spread widens...

when one of the legs fails, you are not doing arbitrage, but you have a position...

It was explained in one video that Bitcoin price didn't vary but rather that bitcoin with export to currencies that are less fungible trade at a discount to Bitcoin because it is the more universal currency. Does that carry weight in your mind? In the video, the guy said something like it wasn't legal to transfer/send the money from the foreign country to say the US? Is that because of foreign controls or US controls? You would think money should be transferable.

tpredictor 

It was explained in one video that Bitcoin price didn't vary but rather that bitcoin with export to currencies that are less fungible trade at a discount to Bitcoin because it is the more universal currency. Does that carry weight in your mind? In the video, the guy said something like it wasn't legal to transfer/send the money from the foreign country to say the US? Is that because of foreign controls or US controls? You would think money should be transferable.

There are countries where you as a citizen can not buy/export currency as you want

I don't agree bitcoin is fixed, more than that, it trades on multiple exchanges, so there
is not a single price. The price of bitcoin is defined by supply and demand.

Very much like the Tulips