SMS receiving is free everywhere, it has nothing to do with data roaming and generic roaming - available on the network - has been free since I had a mobile phone (~17 years).
That must be based on a very limited experience. In the U.S. it was common up until maybe 5 years ago for carriers to charge 10c per sent and received SMS. And that's still true unless you have a plan that explicitly makes them unlimited and free (which is admittedly most of them).
If your carrier is e.g. AT&T you have to sign up for an international service plan or you simply do not receive text messages. The typical thing my friends do is pay $10/day for the international day pass. Crazy. It's why I bought an phone without carrier lock, and when I get to a country just buy a SIM (UICC) with pre-paid texting and data, I don't even car about voice. Since my U.S. number is google voice, the texts come in as data, and local texts are cheap or free in that country.
Charging for receiving is mad. Are they chargign for receiving letters as well? You can make someone pay by sending sms to them, this is crazy and evil.
Don't know where you are from, but with the company and pre-paid plan I use, I can't receive an Australian SMS from my Australian phone when I'm not in Australia.
China has great mobile infrastructure that, at least from a user perspective, is better than what Australia has to offer (it's significantly cheaper and covers significantly more area).
I still can't receive SMSs from my Australian phone when I visit there however and always pick up a local SIM for the duration of my visits.
It's not about pricing, it's just that my Australian provider has no agreements with carriers for other countries.
You may be surprised to learn that in some countries (particularly the Land of the Free) the standard, for some weird reason, is for sending SMS to be free and receiving them to be paid.
