As I am 95% likely leaving ESL for good in a month's time

The problem is if you plan to stay in China, your new employer or chinese business partner or whoever, must be able to get you the visa. Right now things are very fluid, lots of westerners have been refused visas in Hong Kong and simply told to go home.

I'd make sure you have a new blank passport if from the UK or USA, and invite letters from employer or company in China, and of course the police certificate or CRC or whatever it is from the FBI if from the USA.

Not against you, but these are not times to be leaving jobs on a whim so easily in China, the visa crackdown against foreigners is still in full effect it would seem. I know because it bit me in the arse, and I'm now working in HK unable to return to China, until I get new UK passport, police certificate, and an employer from China who can send me all the documents down to HK, even then, I could still get refused at the immigration offices in Wan Chai and told go back to the UK. Whereas in HK a work visa can be obtained by just going to Macau once it is processed. Better the devil you know, or.....?

good luck with getting out of esl anyways, I don't blame you, it is a right racket in China these days!