Originally Posted by
rbAA
Or knowing the right "high-level" official. I was married to a Chinese woman when I lived in Nantong, and I stuck with the 1 year Res Permits with work permit though my wife's uncle was more than willing to assist (hassle free) in getting my PR. I knew a few foreigners who were married to Chinese citizens and most just did the 1 year family visa, which I was going to do on my 66th birthday when I could no longer get work permits. Decided to go the other way: retired, moved to Bangkok and got a divorce.
My colleague's wife (who I helped with the PR process) is tight with plenty of high-level officials, but I learned the hard way that their 关系 didn't carry over to Washington DC quite so well. One particular snag was that her name changed when she got married (in the US), but she was unable to provide a proof of name change document (because there isn't such a document in their state). So, we ended up getting a letter from the actual (state level) secretary of state explaining this, which needed his their medallion seal, a US department of state authentication, a translation into Chinese by an approved translation agency, and authentication from the Chinese consulate. To further complicate matters, we included her a copy of her original PRC ID along with the name change letter, and the consulate refused to authenticate this because they “don't authenticate Chinese documents".