I have not heard that more obstacles are being thrown at Canadians, except that as of late December, applying at the Toronto Consulate now requires an appointment. Not sure about other Chinese missions in Canada. So if any Canadians are reading and have additional data points from the last month, please weigh in here. AFAIK, Canada does not have a similar special visa treaty with China such as the USA does. As for visa applicants from USA applying in the USA, I have not heard of any invitation letters or any restrictions

I HAVE heard that additional requirements are popping up in places where they were not required before--especially Europe. Have not heard that invitation letters are required for tourist visas, but have heard many confirmed reports that outbound air tickets and hotel bookings are being asked for (reports coming in from UK, Germany, Netherlands, various other central & Eastern Europe). The French for nearly 2 years have been asked for this and more--though that was due to some political snit between the two governments which is still murky to many of us.

Over the last 6-8 months, it is definitely more difficult for tourist visa applicants who are "on the road," to get Chinese visas in a third country where they have neither citizenship nor residence. Even in SE Asia, formerly easy places like Vientiane and Phnom Penh have pretty much shut off or severely curtailed viability for foreign travelers not resident there. It's much more widespread to be a local-Consul whim, so there definitely is a policy change. Bangkok and Hong Kong remain reliable locations to get tourist visas, usually single entry 30 day, single entry 60 day, double entry with 30 or 60 day durations are available. Longer durations and multiple entries usually not available. (HK currently many nationalities can get 6 month multiple entry F/business visas though, with usual invite letter).

I couldn't begin to speculate on what is causing the Chinese clampdown, but don't think it's a conscious policy of trying to force independent travelers back into the group system. I think it's a continuation of a general pattern being seen at the top of the Chinese leadership during the Hu administration. The conservatives, the pro-Nationalists, and the paranoid currently seem to have the upper hand, and their tendency has clearly been to close off and ring-fence China. The general environment for foreign business is also getting tougher and more restrictive.

Just to double check
 

I applied for single entry L visa in October 2011 for my trip to Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen in Nov 2011. When my passport came back, I was shocked to find out that I got approved a 12-month multiple entry L visa (Turns out it is not that shocking because it seems to be the norm for American passports).

So, with the long visa validity, I have planned a trip to Xian in a few weeks, and I am seriously considering somewhere else in China (most likely Guilin) in July. As I am preparing for my Xian trip, I just want to double check whether there is something I am missing. I am going to have my hotel/air confirmations with me. It just seems too easy to just show up at the airport with my valid visa in my passport and that's it.

Again and again I've simply showed up at the airport with ticket, passport & visa. *NEVER* have we had any reservations there (we've always stayed with relatives. Note that this incurs a registration requirement that the hotel normally does for you.)

There have been times we forgot to pack the paper with the flight info. It's never been an issue. We have never shown it to any official.

Multiple times we have spent some days in cities other than what we listed on our visa apps--it's never been an issue. (We sometimes decide on side trips while we are there and we sometimes make multiple trips per visa. At this point we hold two-year visas {you won't get one. We have them because she's China-born} making multiple trips per visa even more likely.)

Out of well over a dozen trips our interaction with security comes down to three incidents (not counting registration):

1) Some stuff in our bag that confused the x-ray guy. Unlike the TSA, when that happens they call you to come show them what the mystery is.

2) We flew two days after my wife had a nuclear cardiac stress test and she tripped a radiation detector in PVG. A few minutes of conversation (helped by the fact that she speaks with native-level fluency) and that was that. She did *NOT* have the card from the lab saying what had been done (it was sitting at home in the pocket of the jacket she originally planned to wear on the airplane--she changed her mind on clothing and didn't remember the card) and they never made the slightest effort to examine her or her baggage to find out what was hot.

3) The airline left our baggage behind (Not lost as at all times they knew where it was.) We had to go to the airport two days later to pick it up. My wife was taking forever talking to the people in the baggage office so I headed out with the luggage knowing she would come along. The result was I hit customs alone and with 4 large suitcases--that attracted the interest of the customs official and the fact that we had entered two days earlier attracted more interest.

He started running the bags through an x-ray, at that point my wife showed up and explained what had happened and that was the end of that.

You aren't missing anything. It's just that easy. Where are you expecting the hassle? It certainly wouldn't be with Chinese Immigration. I go in and out on my 12-month multi-entry all the time. You can even exit one day, turn around, and come right back in. (Which reminds me, I need to submit to the forum another 2011 Adventure entitled Jiejie's Wacky Mongolian Border Run, in which I spent a total of 30 minutes inside Mongolia before returning to China!)

It occurs to me--are you perhaps thinking of what the Soviet-block countries used to be like? Don't be mislead by the "communist" label.

While China is not a free society it's nowhere near a police state these days. Even for the locals encounters with officialdom aren't automatically fearful things like they are in police states. Several years ago I even watched a guy who was engaged in illegal commerce talk back to a cop.

You'll even find the encounters with officialdom tend to work better there than here. There's no long lines at airport security, when something does come up it's handled much better:

The last time their security questioned something in my bag: The guy explained (in poor but comprehensible English) what the issue was and asked me to pull out the item in question for inspection. (The store of batteries in my camera bag confused the X-ray guy.) At no point did their hands go inside my stuff and there was no hostility about it.

Contrast that to the TSA: They did all the unpacking and I wasn't even allowed to show them how to untie my wife's knot. (It was giving her trouble. Undo it right and it opens right up, do it wrong and you can convert it into a square knot.) She also got a patdown for having stuff in her bag that they couldn't evaluate on x-ray.

The country isn't ruled by law, so law enforcement has little authority.
The rule of equity seems to work better.

SHA/PVG 48h TWOV
 

I have a question about SHA/PVG 48 hour TWOV.

Just recently having went through that, it was a bit more burdensome and time consuming than expected.

1st, at checkin in HKG (Kowloon Airport Express station), the contracted people who do check-in for MU had no idea of the 48h TWOV in Shanghai, and kept saying there is no such thing, as apparently TiMatic that they use makes no mention of that (both online and in the printed January 2012 edition book they were using for it). They wouldn't even take printout from China Embassy in US about that as proof. Took a really long time (almost an hour) just to get the boarding pass there. They could see next flight out in <48h, but just had no clue about 48h TWOV there and kept saying it's 24h only for EU (Latvia) citizen, which of course is total nonsense and a flat-out lie.

2nd, upon arrival at SHA, we thought no arrival card needed for TWOV. But, we were asked to fill one out. No problem. They took that, took our pictures. But then had no idea what to do, talked to a supervisor, who took our passport, onward itineary printout, and then took us to the staff break room and asked us to sit there (apparently the immigration officer staff there like to eat a lot of apples, from seeing the contents of their lunch bags all over the room). Some 20 minutes later came to ask us to fill out back of new arrival card (that they had filled out for us) some hard-to-read stamp on it with departing flight info; we had to remind them that they had our itineary and we needed that for the departing flight info. Another 10 minutes later all was fine, we were given back our passports (that were stamped in with regular entry stamp, no special TWOV stamp as I thought there was) and a pre-filled departure card, with some hard-to-read stamp on the back about transit.

3rd, upon exit at SHA two days later, one of the immig. officers asked the other (in Mandarin) "is TWOV for 48 hours really fine?" surprised to see it (having never seen it I guess) and was hesitant to stamp us out, but the other told him "they are leaving already, so what's the big fuss, just let them go," and that was that. But, I wasn't stamped out. No exit stamp in passport. Just stamp on boarding pass.

So now my worry is: I have an entry stamp in my passport, no China visa, and no exit stamp. Will it present a problem next time doing TWOV for 48h in Shanghai?

In case it makes a difference, citizenship: Latvia (EU) for me, and Canada for my friend. (TWOV 48h SHA/PVG is, of course, in place for both, as per US China Embassy web site.)

1) Contracted personnel should know the rules, and especially at HKG. Boo to them. I have no explanation why they were clueless. ETA: I see you checked in at the intown station. Perhaps for TWOV passengers in the future, it would be more reliable to just check in at the airport, where at least a more knowledgeable supervisor would be around...and particularly if your passport is not from one of the major western countries.

2) No need for attitude about people lying to you. Latvia was only recently added (second half of 2011) to the 48 hour "favored nations" list. So that knowledge may not be well-known or ingrained yet among most staff and particularly not contracted staff at remote locations. The EU has nothing to do with it, China grants privileges on country basis only. UK and Irish passport holders for instance, still only get 24 hours at PVG/SHA and yet they are in the EU.

3) You thought incorrectly. Arrival cards are needed for EVERYBODY. For TWOV, you put "transit" as purpose of visit, have no visa number to enter and in the China address line, put "international transit." Sorry that the Chinese and the airlines don't make this clearer. It should be part of the entry-to-China procedural spiel that incoming international flights do before arrival.

4) This is normal. TWOV passengers at most airports get the entry stamp in the passport but not an exit one. Chinese immigration will always know. The entry stamp you get is a special hexagonal shaped one, not a normal oval entry stamp (which would be paired with a rectangular exit stamp). Don't worry about this any more.

One in passport and one on BP


China Visa Waiver Transit Stamp

1. I think the issue is that Timatic that airlines use is incomplete and not always accurate. I've checked it myself too (even before this flight), it only ever says 24 TWOV for China, makes no mention of 48h in PVG/SHA anywhere. And yet, airlines seem to rely on this incomplete data source, Timatic, completely. (And so I had the China US Embassy printout, but, the airlines only look at Timatic, even though it's incomplete and not always correct, and nothing else. Sigh..)

3. Ah, I see. On that flight (MU) they made no mention about transit, or really anything other than "customs and immigration formalities," prior to landing. Well at least at the airport they just gave us the arrival cards and a pen to complete them right there, not having to go back or anything (though not like there is ever a line for immigration at SHA, it seems - the whole A320 went through immig. it in some 2-3 minutes very quickly, as all the stations were open).

4. Aha, indeed. Yes, it is hexagonal. (My last China visa is in my old passport, so I couldn't compare to how it was there, but I guess that was then oval.) I think that at SHA (Hongqiao) they may not get that many 48h TWOVs, or any TWOVs for that matter, so may be the supervisor had to go and find that stamp and the stamp for back of departure card or something. Was never any problem or questions (other than connecting flight info, which we had readily available), just it took a really look time (nearly 30 min). At first I thought they were calling MU to verify connecting flight info, but then I thought also just finding the right stamps etc., as they seemed to be going around back and forth between immig. entry stations (as SHA is very quiet, there were no pax entering after our fight until we left). Esp. so based that upon exit the immig. officers there (SHA, Hongqiao as well) were equally clueless and were asking each other "is 48h TWOV really OK." I would guess that at PVG it would have been a lot faster and easier. But, it's just so far away (where we needed to be was just a few km, 2 metro stops, from SHA), and also there's no flights from PVG to where we were going (only from SHA). Plus I'll always pick a smaller, quicker, more convenient airport over a bigger one than PVG (though riding the Maglev train is cool, but I've done that enough times already).

For my future reference: does one also need to fill out the departure card then prior to arrival? As that is where they seem to put the transit stamp on the back, so seems that need to get the departure card ready prior to entry as well..? Or at least, so we were told there ("don't loose that card, you need it to exit").

*Another odd thing: at the hotel they seemed to have no category for transit guests, so after being confused for a while about what to do, they put us under "Taiwan Resident Entrance Permit" in lieu of (non-existent) visa #... odd... but I guess that the stay registration there doesn't really matter that much.

Departure cards are not exclusively issued to those entering China.
There is a box/bin/stack available for those exiting.

But, apparently it must be filled out at entry for transit, as it gets a special transit stamp at the back upon entry.. ? We were told we need those specific departure cards we were handed, with that stamp at the back (with some writing, checkboxes of PVG or SHA, time of transit put in, etc.), to exit. (Now I wish I had taken a photo of it.)

Formalities change. Best always to keep paperwork in China as its
very important.

Definitely. And always keep all paperwork you get from any official, immigration, police station, and bank. Until you are completely out of China.

The attached departure card/arrival card duo should always be filled out together on the plane coming in. The departure part has pretty much the same info as the arrival...minus a few items. When I come into China at any location and get processed in, I take the departure half of the card that the imimgration officer gives me back, and tuck it inside the passport with a clip, even though if I lose it, it can be redone since standard entries don't have anything stamped on the back. It's actually MORE important for TWOV people to keep the exact one they were given at entry immigration.

Yes, I think from your description, that they were riffling the desks looking for the right stamp, and also correct that SHA has fewer TWOV's than PVG, especially on the arrival/inbound part of the sequence.

In my experience, I've never had any problems filling and handing on only the arrival portion of the card, though this has always been with an actual visa. Indeed, at many land crossings, departure cards aren't even available upon arrival. It's only one data point, but I'd say it's probably only necessary to worry about keeping a departure card safe if you're on TWOV.