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China: Take That Tourist Visa And Shove It

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

As we have often written, China always used to be incredibly lax about people using tourist visas to work in China. I know someone who lived in China for fifteen (15) years on nothing but tourist visas. He never once had a problem. Nobody ever once asked him why for fifteen years he had been spending about 350 days out of the year in China as a tourist. Seeing the writing on the wall, however, this person recently registered his business as a WFOE and is now in China on a Z visa (employee/work). As we have also often written, it is getting much, much tougher to get into China at all, either by way of a tourist or business visa. We have also written how the government has greatly increased its checking of visas, both on the streets and in homes. But, I just learned today on Chris Carr's Cal Poly MBA blog that foreigners in China with visas that have yet expire risk deportation for being there on the wrong visa. In other words, according to a Cal Poly MBA alum who wrote Mr. Carr, if you are right now working in China on a tourist visa, you run the risk of being tossed out:

The visa situation is horrible. The government is going to the [___ citizen] homes and trying to take away their visa by showing they are on the wrong type (i.e., working with a tourist visa). I got mine before these problems. I was on a student visa and now on a business visit visa for work. It was easier to call me an ?internship? to get the visa. When I need to renew it might be difficult. My _____[omitted] company is trying to get a license here and get him/her a working visa but he/she is having difficulties so he/she keeps going to other countries to get a tourist visa. We have had guests who had a lot of problems, it is hurting our business. Last week _______ [omitted] came and spoke to ______[omitted name] [and us] because the police are calling people and asking questions to find reason to deport them. It is crazy here. They have pulled over two of my foreign friends and taken away their scooters and tried to take their passports.

Is this going on just in this one (unnamed) city, or is this going on everywhere in China?

Full post as published by China Law Blog on June 07, 2008 (boomark / email).