My wife has a BoC account (personal), no problem transferring money back and forth whatsoever, dunno other banks. You obviously need to get the iban or the shift code right. Your local bank should be able to help you.
The problem seems to be that, as with many things in China, the laws and regulations are considered more guidelines than actual rules. If the authorities want to crack down on stuff, they do and there's nothing anyone can do about it, and it's not always clear what criteria are used to make decisions on these things, if any.
A friend of mine (Chinese student studying abroad) has a BoC account which automatically transfers money to a foreign account, and it has a relatively low annual transfer limit: around $10,000 per year.