Hope for convenient exit & entry

Laurence Huang, a Chinese-American scholar specialized in the science of education, feels a bit troublesome when thinking about going back to China now. She will be required to submit an invitation letter every time she applies for a Chinese visa, according to a new law passed in June.

"I had hoped the new exit and entry law would bring us more convenience and better service," Huang said, "but the letter issue seems to me an extra trouble."

But there are also good signals. The new Exit & Entry Administration Law, scheduled to take effect on July 1, 2013, stipulates that foreign "talents", for the first time, will be granted regular Chinese visas.

It reflects the concept of "skilled immigration", said Professor Liu Guofu, an immigration law expert from the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT).

China does not have a migration law. The country passed two laws on the exit and entry of Chinese citizens and foreigners, respectively, in 1985. The new law aims to build a unified exit and entry information platform by combining the two together.

One of the objectives in revising the laws is to facilitate the entry of overseas talents. "China's demographic dividend is dwindling. Talents will be crucial to the country's continued development in the following three decades," said Dr. Wang Huiyao, director general of the Center for China and Globalization, a subsidiary of China Western Returned Scholars Association.

Many of the overseas talents are Chinese nationals who have lived abroad either with or without foreign resident or citizen status. Since China carried out the reform and opening up policy in the late 1970s, about 10 million people have left the Chinese mainland, and more than half of them have stayed abroad, Wang said.

With China's rapid economic growth, many of them have come back to seek better development opportunities during the past decade. Official statistics show that the total of both Chinese and foreigners exiting or entering China climbed to 411 million in 2011, 10.08 times that of 1985.

However, many returnees complained that the often frustrating experiences of applying and waiting for approval to enter China have made them feel "unwelcome" in their motherland.

"The flights from New York City to China are packed almost every day," Laurence Huang said, "It's understandable that the Chinese government shall tighten its administration on foreigners' exit and entry. But the new requirements such as invitation letter, which is so easily available, may not help."

"I don't know whether I will be classified as a 'talent' or not, and I will keep a close eye on it," said Huang, who acquired US citizenship in 1995.

Liu Guofu considered the term "talent" over-simplified. "The new law does not give a definition of talents or describe how they are assessed. The general account makes it difficult to implement."

Liu hoped there will be further explanations about the talent issue in the new law's supporting rules which are being enacted or revised.

He also hoped that the law makers will take the actual conditions into consideration in terms of permanent resident status. "Overseas talents, especially high-level ones, often choose to divide their work time between countries, and many talented Chinese who have acquired foreign citizenship indicate that they prefer this mode of career development."

"You don't have to stay in China to make outstanding contributions to the country," Liu said.

In 2004, China launched a mechanism for evaluating permanent residence status applications from foreigners. The China green card, valid for five or 10 years, exempts its holder from having to apply for a visa each time he or she enters China. Critics, however, have said the threshold is too high for many would-be applicants.

Statistics released by the Ministry of Public Security show that by July of this year, the ministry had granted permanent resident status to 3,275 foreigners, including 621 high-caliber overseas talents. Most of them are of Chinese origin.

On Dec. 11 of this year, 25 government departments just countersigned a set of new methods to further clarify the rights and benefits of those green card holders.

According to the new methods, except for political rights and some other issues that the law has different rulings, a foreigner who holds the China green card enjoys, in principle, the same rights and has the same obligations as a Chinese citizen, such as applying for social insurance, purchasing houses and sending children to local schools.