April 14, 2008 – 6:40 pm
Being woken up by someone pounding furiously on the door is never a pleasant experience at the best of times but when you’re living in China, it’s 6.30am and the person at the door is yelling “Police, Police”, it must be doubly disturbing.
My friend, who suffered such a rude awakening last week, has lived in Beijing for two years and has a genuine Z-type work visa. The policeman at the door demanded to see her passport and papers. Having carefully scrutinized the paperwork to check that everything was in order, he then cheerfully apologized for the disturbance and went on his way. Unsurprisingly, my friend didn’t get back to sleep.
For all that many foreigners like to complain, aside from the language barrier and the occasional brush with bureaucracy, living in China is nowhere near as stressful as many outside the country would imagine it to be. Most expats enjoy a good standard of living and, save for occasional trips to renew residency registrations or to extend visas, generally have relatively few interactions with the authorities.
Yet over the past few months, the authorities are increasingly invading this expat comfort zone. At least three friends have had personal home visits from policemen demanding to see their papers. Another friend’s office was recently raided and all the foreigners present were required to show their documentation. A third friend was stopped randomly while on her bike and asked to produce her passport – when she explained that she didn’t have it on her, the policeman briefly threatened to take her down to the station before eventually relenting and letting her go on her way. The police presence in Beijing has become much more noticeable.
When I came out to Beijing to start working last August, a family friend who lives out here asked me whether my job would provide me with a proper working visa – a Z visa – or whether I would be on a temporary business visa – an F visa. She was concerned because she had heard on the grapevine that the authorities were planning to tighten the visa regulations in the run-up to the Olympics. I reassured her that I was on a Z visa and thought little more of it. But many of my friends here are on F visas – three- or six-month business visas which officially require a letter of introduction from a Chinese registered company but which in practice have been easily obtainable through visa agents of dubious legitimacy who advertise their services to foreigners in cities across China.
Last month, however, a friend of mine went to apply for a six-month multiple entry F visa in Hong Kong and was told that this was no longer available – the most he could apply for was a 30-day double entry visa. Other friends have since been told that they will only be able to obtain 30-day visas when their current F visas expire. Last week, a number of media reports picked up on this apparent clampdown on multi-entry business visas, with trade and industry groups, claiming, rightly that this would have affect tens of thousands of foreign businesspeople who live in or regularly do trade in China. A number of friends have admitted that they may well have to leave the country and only return after the Olympics. The alternative – a Hong Kong or Seoul visa run every 30 days, is just too expensive, not to mention time- and labour-intensive, to be worth their while. As magazine editors, we are bound to feel the pinch – almost all freelance journalists in China operate on F visas.
What is further complicating the issue, however, is the fact that the Chinese authorities are publically denying that there have been any changes whatsoever to the visa process. Calls to the Chinese embassy in London have been met with reassurances that the rules are exactly the same as those listed on the website – ie they haven’t changed since 2006. Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told journalists in Beijing last week that there had been no change to China’s visa policy. There is a wealth of evidence to suggest that this is patently not the case. Perhaps, given the current slew of negative publicity surrounding the Olympics, the government is attempting to avoid any further opportunities for the Western media to criticize China. Certainly the recent unrest in Tibet will have made the authorities less inclined to continue to allow foreigners to live in China based on dubious letters of reference from often non-existent employers.
China has comparatively relaxed visa requirements, certainly in comparison to, say, Russia, where the regulations seem designed to actively discourage anyone from even considering visiting the country in the first place. And certainly the F-visa loophole has been readily exploited by tens of thousands of foreigners looking to live in China without securing full-time employment. So in some ways a tightening of the rules is not altogether surprising nor, necessarily should China be criticized for it too heavily. It would certainly have a negative impact on some business activities, but companies and individuals would soon learn to live with the new rules and, probably, to factor in the additional costs and paperwork. Many people who are currently exploiting legal loopholes would have to find a way to stay here legitimately or would be forced to leave.
But the problem is that because officially the authorities are denying it, no-one knows the actual situation, nor whether the current restrictions will, as many expect, be lifted following the Olympics. And without knowing this, neither individuals nor businesses are able to plan ahead for the next few months – everything is based upon assumptions, second-hand stories and rumor. What business fears most is uncertainty. The longer immigration officials continue to deny the situation and claim that it is business as usual when this is patently not the case, the more difficult life will become for businesses and businesspeople and the more money the economy stands to lose.
Perhaps the only people profiting from this whole fiasco are Hong Kong hoteliers. If everyone on F-visas will be forced to make a monthly visa run from now on, expect demand for hotel rooms in Hong Kong to go through the roof.
Matthew Plowright
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