China Visas. I'm Getting Deja Vu Olympic Feelings.

One of the great things a about being a lawyer is that we hear all kinds of things from our clients and potential clients. And then when we start hearing those same things on the blogs, we know something is up. I am hearing a lot of things about the difficulty of getting anything but a three month visa.

I actually got a call from a potential (very broadly defined) client the other day wanting our help in getting him a one year visa. He "owns" a business in China and it is "absolutely critical to the point of it being do or die" that he be in China at the end of May. He had applied for a business visa (an F Visa) and been turned down cold and essentially told not to bother coming back until 2010 to try again. We talked a bit about what he was doing in China and it turned out he had set up an internet business with a Chinese "partner" where, on the books, his Chinese partner owns the business entirely, but this American has an oral agreement with the "100% trusted"Chinese partner that the business is really owned 50-50.

I hate these sorts of arrangements for thousands of reasons, and the inability of the foreigner (in this case the American) to have easy and relatively secure access to a Chinese visa only ranks about 60th on the list (way behind losing the business entirely). Anyway, this guy seemed really panicked and I got the strong sense it was finally starting to dawn on him how easy it would be for his "100% trusted" Chinese partner to simply cut him out, especially now that he would almost certainly end up letting the business down by failing to come to China for this "super important" May event. I ended up telling him that it would not make sense for him to hire an American law firm to help sway the China visa office and that he should probably just retain one of those Chinese "fixer-type" firms that charge a lot and half the time seem to pull off miracles and the other half of the time seem to just run off with your money without doing anything. He asked me for the name of a good one and I begged off.

I also suggested he think about turning his stealth business into a legitimate WFOE or joint venture, such that he could qualify for a Z visa (an employee visa). He did not seem terribly interested, but said he would get back to me on that. There is no way this "solution" could be done soon enough to get him a China visa by late May.

This was actually the second call like this in the last two weeks and when I couple this with the rumors of visa tightening I have been hearing from clients and lawyers in China, I knew something was up. The always excellent Shanghai Scrap just did an aptly titled post, "Visa Madness All Over Again,"explaining the situation and why there is a situation.

Seems Shanghai Scrap (Adam Minter) had just learned that a high-powered Beijing industry conference he was going to attend in May had been canceled because so many foreigners would be unable to secure visas for coming:

Moments ago, I received a phone call from the organizers of a major industry conference and exhibition scheduled for Beijing in late May. For the sake of the people involved, I’m not going to name the conference or the industry, except to note that it is a very, very big industry employing many, many Chinese people in factories receiving a whole lot of Chinese economic stimulus funds. As for the conference: it’s being sponsored by a major Chinese trade group, several major Chinese state-owned enterprises, a notable division of Xinhua, several major foreign trade publications, and one foreign newswire. The people who own and operate companies in this industry (or, heck, analyze them) are not, generally, rabble-rousers. Indeed, they tend to be very conservative, verging on boring, with a strong preference for what some people like to call “stability.”

The explanation from the conference representative was that "because of the 60th anniversary of the Communist Party the visa policy changes. So we will postpone until November. Perhaps you can attend then?”

Minter notes that it is actually the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and then rightly compares the existing visa situation to that of the Olympics:

Even short memories will recall the Olympics-related visa restrictions from last year (see here, and countless other places). Then, the authorities were concerned with disrupting anyone who might care to disrupt a high profile international event. They may very well have succeeded; I don’t know. But what I do know - and so does everyone in Beijing who hoped to make a buck off Olympic tourism - is that they also succeeded in dissuading tourists from visiting China. Fine and good. Now, the 60th anniversary of the PRC is not the Olympics - that is, it’s not an international event - but one can argue that, in light of the global financial crisis, China needs international visitors now more than ever. After all: Hotel vacancies are on the rise; FDI is down; exports are down. At the same time, the US, China’s most important trading partner, is finally showing a willingness to approach China pragmatically, instead of ideologically. I don’t claim to understand a tightening of visas under these circumstances, but I can’t imagine that it helps it economically, or diplomatically, over the next several months.

Shanghaiist also has a post on the tightening visa situation,entitled, "F Visas will be scarce during upcoming anniversary." Shanghaiist links its readers over to "amazing visa procurers Meshing Consultancy Service, which on its site has the following to say about tightening visa requirements:

From 15th Apr 2009, Oct 2009 is our China 60 Years Liberation ceremony(very huge ceremony). The visa policy start to become tight again from now. According to that, right now, we can get 6 month F visa with maxmium 2 entries(you can leave and come back 2 times during the 6 month), multi-entries or 1 year F visa is not available, and the 6 month visa will only valid till the end of Sept.

Bottom Line. There are three very important things that should be taken away from all this. One, if you need certainty in terms of being able to get into China, you cannot rely on either an F visa (business) or an L visa (tourist) for that. Two, if you need certainty in terms of being able to get into China, the solution is usually to legitimately set up your own company so you can get a Z visa (employee). Three, and probably most important, is that the Chinese government will nearly always place politics and stability over economics.