Monday, April 28, 2008

To avoid misunderstandings

This blog is not "against China" !
This blog is against an unreasonable and maybe not very well consulted change of "china visa politics".

This blog is for the many people who travel China very frequently - not for the purpose of "pure traveling". This is for business.
These people "travel" for the purpose of business visits, meetings + quality control at their chinese business partners site.
Many of us have chosen China as our manufacturing base, including all positive and all negative effects.

It is not "understandable" why "foreign passport holders" with a reasonable "visa history" are now almost completely "blocked" to follow their business on the mainland and to visit their business partners on the mainland.

Even more not "understandable" it is why a "foreign passport holder" with a permanent HK ID card now gets a 1x entry for a maximum of 2 days - permitted to Shenzhen only, same passport holder has a visa history of almost 10 years with nearly 250 - 300 entries/exits including Z visas.

The advice by the "Consul" to apply in Guangzhou for the "VISA NOTIFICATION LETTER" and then getting a visa issued "permitted to Shenzhen only" is quite irritating:
Probably this is already breaking the "exit/entry law for aliens" when going to Guangzhou to apply for this "VISA NOTIFICATION LETTER" as the visa is "permitted to Shenzhen" only.

We are not "terrorists", we are not "trouble-makers" + we are not "Tibet activists" or whatever could be any concern of "disturbing the social order + harmony" on the mainland.

It should be taken into serious consideration by the responsible department in Beijing to introduce some "slight amendments" to this "new china visa" policy very quickly.
Also the "Hong Kong SAR" government should raise a word about this "new china visa" policies - isn't it ?

Last note: Personally it is a "heavy slap" directly in the face, makes many business people feel very embarrassed + frustrated and sad: Why getting this kind of treatment after so many years ?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Found this here - this sounds a little bit like some kind of "Kristallnacht in Beijing:

Expats feel the heat as ugly anti-foreign feeling emerges in Beijing
Mary-Anne Toy in Beijing
April 28, 2008
AS CHINA ponders how to balance a resurgent nationalism that sometimes borders on xenophobia and its desire to welcome foreigners to a harmonious Beijing Olympics this August, the situation on the ground is difficult to quantify.

In one of the city's remaining traditional hutong neighbourhoods, the normal friendly welcome for a foreign reporter seems unaffected by the recent tirade in the Chinese media and internet against the Western media and foreigners over their criticism of China and its treatment of Tibet.

While many Beijingers have had their homes compulsorily demolished for the Olympics, the municipal government is spending a billion yuan ($153 million) to renovate four of the city's remaining hutong neighbourhoods.

Most people are proud to be contributing to Beijing's clean-up for the Olympics and say they are not upset about being forced to leave Beijing in June until after the Olympics as part of a construction shutdown to reduce pollution and noise.

In other parts of the city the attitude to foreigners has worsened.

A foreign couple, who have lived here for decades, have closed their cafe in Sanlitun's bar street, which is popular with tourists, expats and well-off locals, after rising discrimination over the past year.

An incident almost two weeks ago, at the height of the anti- foreign protests over disruptions to the Olympic torch relay, confirmed their decision.

"Suzanna" and their daughter, 4, were driving home from their cafe on April 16 when a Chinese driver accused her of hitting his car. She denied their vehicles had even touched. As the disagreement became heated, her husband "Jean" came out from their cafe and told her to take their daughter home while he dealt with the angry driver's demand for cash.

When Suzanna tried to drive off, the Chinese man opened her passenger door and began throwing out her belongings on to the street, accusing her of trying to run away. During the three-hour ordeal, about 30 local Chinese gathered. Some yelled "kill the foreigners", "kill the French, kill the British, kill the Americans", unable to distinguish that Suzanna and Jean were none of those nationalities. Suzanna finally flagged down a police car and the officers were able to clear a path for the family to leave.

Andy Scott from Dezan Shira & Associates, a foreign business consultancy, said visa clampdowns on foreigners in Hong Kong were part of a wider security policy of China completely or partially closing many of its borders before the Olympics. "The Government … is limiting the number of people they're letting in … because they have watched these protests and realised that these people could come to China and really mess up 'our Games'," Mr Scott said. "Having it [protests] in Paris or London is one thing but to have them in Beijing is completely unacceptable."

Yesterday Hong Kong reportedly refused entry to three human rights activists from Denmark who planned to protest during the Hong Kong leg this Friday.

Anonymous said...

>To avoid misunderstandings
This blog is not "against China" !
This blog is against an unreasonable and maybe not very well consulted change of "china visa politics"

I think you are doing a good job and like to thank you for your interest in these matter who concerns over 250000 foreigners.

We have the feeling been dropped out with out notice and there is no one single bureau in the mainland that can handle these matter.

When a country invites foreign investors to come and then for security reason have to change the rules.... The wise thing is for that country to provide a suivi service wish so far is not the case.

Playing a silent game is unfair and the result of these is that must foreigners on business will head some were else!

The Visa Man said...

Hi Anon 2,
thank you for your reply - please let us know what is a "suivi service" ?

Anonymous said...

Frech word >> suivi =monitoring service

Anonymous said...

I have studied the content of your blog
It is a universally accepted norms that every country have a sovereign right to decide how they welcome foreigners
A foreign visitor benefit from privilege of a hospitality
One can not say you invite me to your house I like it please continue to do so
I also saw some links of websites in your blog that are openly hostile to China.
As a guest of a country that you use the visa of their government
to visit you have the duty of a guest to be polite to them by not putting the links that are insulting to China
In Europe sometimes foreigners houses are burnt at night
Before teaching others how to behave just see how Western countries behave to Chinese in matters related to visa
If you need hospitality of China you have choice beeing in Shenzhen only or cleaning the matters very near to you
By the way I am a westerner too.
What I know a guest is a guest and a host is a host
And everybody should know his place
I am from Belgium I do similar job as you
But from Guangzhou
You do not need to publish these words who are just for you my aim is to explain you why maybe you are good for sz only visa
It is Chinese way to say yes for your visa but no to what you put in your blog and your reaction
Chinese beleive they have no business in telling other governments how to behave in their country they also do not like others do the same
You can contact me if you need at ipfcn at aim dot com
I know you are annoyed I just wanted you think over
I may be wrong of course thats what I think

The Visa Man said...

To IPFCN:
1) I appreciate your thoughts and I am not feeling annoyed by your comment.
2) If you find some links in my site which you think are "openly hostile" just let me know which one you think are like this and I will double-check.
3) Blogs are "normally meant to view very personal opinions" of the blogger. Sometimes this can be very exaggerate - up to aggressive - but this is the "modern world" and especially the world of the internet. Remember the blogs posted by mainland people against Carrefour ? They were very much far away from anything polite - they were agressive + very radical. The world we are talking about is combined in the net today. there are no frontiers anymore. This is the global village !
4) To the topic in special: Yes we are all guest and visitors. But I simply feel it is very odd after 10
years being here with more than 400
entries + several years of work visa in Shanghai and putting a lot of knowledge into our suppliers - suddenly getting such a kick in the ass. I do not want to talk about money what was brought to China trhough our expertise + orders. I had the idea to be considered as a friend and not really a guest or visitor.
5)And to the very absurd my 3 year old baby now got the China home return card to go back and forth to China whenever needed.
And I have to "beg" for a multiple entry visa like I had it the last 10 years ?