Flight Crew Last 90 Days 300; Flight Crew Total 15000; Flight Crew Type 4000
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Workload
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Aircraft; Chart Or Publication; Procedure
STARS in the 747 Navigation (NAV) database do not match the charted STARs by name. They are not even close. ZBAA (Beijing) has a history of assigning the arrival procedure very late in the arrival sequence. When the procedure designation in the FMC does not remotely match the name on ANY chart; and one only has a couple of minutes to load the procedure; there is no time to start at the top and search manually for one that follows the same points. We almost flew past a clearance limit due to not knowing which arrival to program in. Chinese controllers are not adept with manual control of aircraft in airspace where they expect it to be automated. We were minutes from a potentially very dangerous situation. At the very least; we were minutes away from a Chinese violation. This is a regular occurrence flying into ZBAA and unsatisfactory. In addition; every database update changes enough of the STARS that familiarity cannot be counted on. A good example of this is; one First Officer (FO) on this leg had the 'paired' FMC database STAR electronically written on the page in his EFB. That STAR no longer existed in the FMC for the runway we were assigned.  It was pure luck that we found the correct one in the FMC before flying past the first fix associated with the clearance.
A B747 First Officer states that the STAR names in the FMC do not match the names on the arrival charts for ZBAA; causing late selection of the assigned arrival procedure.