China: Take That Tourist Visa And Shove It
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?
Comments
This is what I have to say about living in China for foreigners, especially those from N. America, Europe, OZ, NZ, Japan, and (with extreme reservations) Korea. This is based on my 3 years in Shanghai (03-06) as an American nearly fluent in the language and with all his t's crossed and i's dotted.
It doesn't matter how much you have invested, what your command of the language is, or what your visa status is. In the west, the best any immigrant could hope for is being treated in the same manner as law-abiding, productive citizens of whatever country. In China, the worst any immigrant could hope for would be to receive the treatment China reserves for it's own law-abiding, productive citizens.
What we are seeing now is foreigners being treated by the central AND regional authorities in the same manner as they treat their own citizens. Which means the bloom is off the rose.
Ready to register with the police every few months? Be treated like a red-headed stepchild if you get into a traffic accident with a local? Be the subject of lawsuits by cheery-picking Chinese lawyers who can capitalize on anti-foreigner sentiment? Welcome to China 2.0!
Posted by: Marty Oberweis | June 7, 2008 9:17 AM
Thanks for that timely piece. Not sure I get the point of Mr O's post here though. But, as one who has lived in Shangers for the last 5 years on a 'Z' visa, I'd like to second that emotion, viz. to keep all your i's and t's dotted and crossed regarding your legal status. That we can't be treated better than the local citizenry is really a moot point. We are guests in this often gracious country after all, and it behooves us very well to abide by its laws and to follow all their seasonal variations -- or, alas, we may fall into the increasingly prevalent trap of professing far too much ignorance of where we are and what we're doing.
Posted by: Rob | June 10, 2008 3:15 AM