This news went around the world. Someone from Europe mentioned this to me on the phone today.
Amazing, considering the minuscule impact it really has.

That’s basically no change then. I only bothered filling in my current employment and undergraduate university on the previous form and they didn’t complain. The only difficult bit was trying to find the number of the passport I had stolen over 20 years ago.

Well, it tops last week's exciting news (several line items removed from the customs app).

Chinese authorities of all stripes were definitely much more anal during and immediately after Covid than I've witnessed previously (dating back to the 90s). They seem to have calmed down quite a bit since June or so, but I still know a lot of people who get treated to personal interviews upon most entries even though they have eChannel.

Is this a real thing? I’ve never once been talked to when using echannel with hundreds of entry/exits over the years, including at least 20 this year alone.

You're presumably not on one of their special lists (I'm not either), but if you were, the gates wouldn't open and you wouldn't be permitted to pass until a form was completed and added to your file. This seems like a "going through the motions" exercise to me (i.e. not the least bit nerve wracking, just someone doing their job according to the book in order to keep his/her job).

PRC to now allow ex-HK foreigner tour group visa free

港澳地區外國人組團入境廣東144小時免簽證
http://news.now.com/home/local/playe...m_medium=share

Seems to me it's limited to nine Pearl River Delta cities, plus Shantou.

p.s. calling the PRD the "greater bay area," j'amuse. It will always be the more original PRD to me.

Had my wife translate for me to make sure I didn't read it wrong. Give it up to China to make a simple thing complicated.

1) You have to registered with a Hong Kong or Macau's tour company to form a "tour group", so you can't just show up at the border with a group of 2 or more people. Now, the tour group won't do it for free, so it'll be interesting to see how much that'll cost. Also, the tour company might demand you pay for a tour guide, and sign up for a tour with them, so it may not even be free roaming.
2) Your group need to stay together the entire duration. Now, I guess one can assumed to take advantage of this it'll be a family or a company group. However, PDR is a big place. What if I wanted to go to one city and other members want to go to another?

I love China but these kind of "yes we've loosened the regulations, BUT, read the fine prints" are always so frustrating.

Ummm. Blame China for what you want, but that seems to be pretty standard for tour groups..

if you want to travel individually wherever you want, a tour group permit isn’t the way to go.

TOUR GROUP. Two words. Kinda simple :D

Did you read the article? Admittedly, it's a secondary source and is thin on details, but from what I can glean, the concept of "tour group" they are employing is anything but simple.

China is already such a hot destination for foreign tourist these days! Lots of foreigners must be lining up to discover the wonders of Shenzhen and Dongguan. I can see these tours selling out in a flash!

Pure speculation here:
-suppliers in Shenzhen, Dongguan, and similar are rapidly being replicated or completely dropped
-this is obviously a big deal for Guangdong, and it appears Zhongnanhai regards it as a national concern (i.e. no sensible Guangdong official would dare propose "groups of 2" in the absence of Papa's tacit support)
-the group visa loophole for Hainan was actually a Guangdong innovation (because Hainan was still part of Guangdong at the time it was introduced), so whoever developed this new scheme can rely upon precedent
-99.9% of forum members should ignore that short article for now, but when/if it matures, we'll certainly discuss it here

Don't forget Shantou! Most polluted city by levels of heavy metals: arsenic, lead, chromium, mercury and cadmium! Can't go anywhere else and be exposed to so much in one day! For those who don't know, Shantou used to buy the world's trash, particularly discarded consumer electronics and batteries, for stripping and partial reuse. Left behind an awful mess, however.

That said, I wanted to add a little to the speculation by pointing out they're also introducing visa-free to cruise passengers docking in Shanghai, so it seems you're right about it being a national concern. That one might be interesting if it also applied to the international ferries (for example, Osaka/Kobe-Shanghai), but probably not.

Silly question, but I'm preparing for my first visit in 4 years - traveling on a 10 year visa issued in 2016 on which I have
over 20 entries/exits. Will I have to line up at the fingerprint machine again, or will they still have record of my fingerprints/
passport/visa on file?

Anecdotal evidence suggests that once they have your fingerprints on record, they don't lose them.

To expand on that, is there anything one needs to do to beforehand? In other words, can one take their old (now expired) passport with the 10 year visa in it, along with the new passport and enter China as before, or is there some process/procedure that is required to "activate/acknowledge" the visa?

No, nothing needs to be done - I am presuming USA passport. Just bring old and new.

I wouldn't bother bringing the old one. If they can't find your prints using the new passport, redoing the collection drill is probably the path of least resistance... KISS.

Can you expand on your statement of "redoing........". Not familiar with what you are talking about. Thank you. Have flight in a couple weeks.

He means going to the fingerprint machines and doing it again.

If they don't have your fingerprints on file, they'll ask you to use one on their machines to collect new prints.

Are we talking about the fingerprint machines BEFORE getting to the immigration area?
Although I don't actually need to use the fingerprint machines, I still do, as it doesn't take long, and it keeps all the staff happy, who seem to insist sometimes that all 'long noses' use the machines.
I found it takes less time to spit out the fingerprint machine receipt than argue with the staff.

Thanks all for the info. I will probably take my old passport with the visa and also my new passport. I've had visas for over 20 years, and it's hard to tell what goes on. I have a pretty common name so have been pulled over a few times and apparently whomever they may be looking for doesn't look like me but they still pull me over and take me to some room to wait. So....gonna take all my stuff, but will take your advise and only show new passport. Thanks again. Appreciate it.

He meant the visa is in his old passport, while he has a new passport. He must bring both.
The reference was not to fingerprinting.

You must show the visa in the old one.

Just tell them you have echannel. They’ll let you go past with no issue after that.

That barely works at the eChannel entrance itself. Maybe I should try and tell them in Chinese?

Has anyone entered China in "Express Lane"? 快捷通道

Basically if you have a "digital" 电子护照 foreign passport and resident permit 外国人居留许可 over 6 months, you can take Express Lane.

https://baijiahao.baidu.com/s?id=176...=spider&for=pc

Apart from the Covid "lost years" I've used this for every entry and exit from 2017 onwards.

I don't know of any residents who travel in/out of China on a semi-frequent basis and don't use it.

This might merit its own post, but I noticed a post on Reddit about a recent policy change allowing foreign citizens born to Chinese parents to apply for Chinese 旅行证 even if they're older than 18. Has anyone else heard of this happening, because I can imagine quite a few people taking advantage of this.

Do you have the reddit thread?

It seems to be deleted now, but it was previously here.

I recovered the post http://webcache.googleusercontent.co...hinese_travel/ . (oh, seems like that's gone too. Thank goodness I saved a PDF - have to use Google Drive as too big for FT attachment upload https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iOs...w?usp=drivesdk )

Interesting. Obviously it only works for children born with nationality conflict in the first place.

Just thinking of my niece and nephew (for the purpose of descending HKPR, or avoiding Chinese Visa if they choose to travel there). They aren't nationality conflicted so not affected by new arrangements for CTD (OTOH, nothing that will suggest CCP will suddenly "discover" they're Chinese citizens and deny them Australian consular protection).

In my case this is my first time finding out I might be nationality-conflicted, but both parents EDIT: were mainlanders at the time (now naturalized US citizens) so no HKPR. I'm wondering why it's only the US that has the additional "both parents have to have permanent residence" requirement (this is what might get me the CTD- my parents moved to the US the year I was born, so no permanent status for either at the time) to avoid nationality conflict, then, given your reply in the Reddit post. Seems like I have to decide whether to get a CTD instead of a visa next time or formally give up citizenship.

I'm not very knowledgeable with US immigration law (or more importantly - PRC's interpretation of US immigration law): for US, does PRC only consider Green Card to be settled abroad?

That seems to be the implication for the Chinese embassy's website listing document requirements for CTD:

"If you were born in the United States, and either or both parents were Chinese citizens without permanent residence in the US or any other country" is the category I might fall under. This is what used to only be until age 18 (at which point a choice had to be made) but now might be for life.

I looked up the judgement https://legalref.judiciary.hk/lrs/co...%2F11%29&TP=JU referred to by the https://www.alumni.cuhk.edu.hk/aaaus...grant_case.htm link from the Reddit.

The HK judgement doesn't really help cases like yours - HK court essentially looked at a purposive intention of the parents, and stated applicants' claims that only pernament right of abode (e.g. Green Card) should count were incorrect in law. So essentially, residential visas on the pathway to permanent residence also count for "settled abroad" according to HK courts.

Fortunately HK judgements on CNL do not necessarily inflect back on the Mainland (not that Mainland courts uses stare decisis anyway) so you can still claim your Embassy statement should stand.