International Law

China Visas Just Got Easier AND Tougher.

By Dan

Some interesting developments with China visas this last month. 

First the good news. The Shanghai Exit-Entry Administration Bureau has launched an English-language website for visa renewals and I checked it out and it is not bad at all (h/t to Shanghaiist).

Now the bad news. I have received three rather troubling visa related calls in the last month or so. Two of them were from people who had been caught working in China without a work visa (Z visa) and both of them were subsequently denied re-entry visas to China. The other was from an employee with a state government in the United States, while vacationing in China was reading up on China cyber hacking and is now convinced that the Chinese government took his laptop at some point when he left his hotel room and then followed him while in China. 

The first two people wanted us to call the Chinese Embassy and get them visas and the third person wanted us to do the same, but to tell them that he is not really a spy, rather just a low state government employee with an interest in computers. I told all three that a phone call from an American lawyer would likely have zero effect and that they could better spend their money elsewhere. All three really want to return to China (the first two pretty much need to return to China), but in my experience, once China has put you on a no entry list, it is pretty much impossible to get off it. The government employee is rightfully concerned about returning to China at all and my advice was that he consider vacationing elsewhere the next time.  

Anyone else experience or know of something similar?

Full post as published by China Law Blog on February 06, 2011 (boomark / email).