China’s visa free entry programme
 

China announced today that they will give 15 day visa free entry for nationals of 6 nations: Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Malaysia.

This sounds similar to the deal Singaporean and Japanese passport holders get.

Apparently this is a test that will run from Dec 1 2023 to Nov 30 2024.

Hopefully they add more countries to this scheme too as travel to China is massively down compare to pre Covid.

https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/2023...82a5eff22.html

:tu: Thanks for reporting !

That is… totally unexpected given the past few years’ trend.
I shall try it on Dec 2nd for a day trip and report here !

That's really good news. Hope eventually it can be extended to 30 days, it'll certainly help reduce the burden for those who are turned off by applying for a visa.

Maybe eventually that will happen, but similar to Japan and Singapore (which have had 15 day privileges for ages), none of these countries are popular tax shelters.

Usually when China loosens visa requirements, they expect reciprocity. This might be why it is only in place for a one year trial.

Japan and Singapore both require PRC nationals to obtain visas, with few exceptions.

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To show real sincerity China needs to give this to Americans.

Seriously though, does this policy have any caveats? Such as the cumulative number of days in China in a year, or the number of entries? Based on this someone can just do a "visa run" every 2 weeks and stay in China indefinitely.

Simply why ?

Not much fear of nationals of those countries buying up Chinese property (easy: they can't), and/or looking for long-term work.

Conversely....

Assuming it's the exact same policy that applies to Japan and Singapore, I don't think there are any caveats beyond the obvious.

Wrt the US and other unwelcoming countries, reciprocity seems to pretty important (e.g. $100 fee plus interview is a two way street, but so is 10-year validity).

On the issue of reciprocity as France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain are in Schengen they would be unable to unilaterally grant reciprocity without the rest of Schengen agreeing?

Hmmm. Interesting point. If those countries aren't able to grant reciprocity, then China isn't really putting itself in a position to lose face by offering them unrequited visa free entry.

Correct, I believe in terms of the visa policy, the espace Schengen has to have a fairly uniform visa policy.

In practice, it would be non-enforceable otherwise, given our open borders. A person could simply enter one country visa-free and drive/take train/bicycle/walk into somewhere that requires a visa. See what happens with people climbing at the fence at Ceuta.

Reciprocity doesn't necessarily have to be a given though. There are many examples where visa-free is only in one direction. French nationals can visit Maroc and Sénégal visa-free, but the ressortissants of these two countries have to have a visa to enter Schengen and France.