This is China! BLOG

The Latest Olympics Track and Field Event: Getting a Visa to China

An American friend just back from Guangzhou told me how ridiculous security is becoming in a run-up to the Olympics, heavy-handed and inconsistently applied. He and his Chinese assistant/interpreter as well as a Chinese business associate had flown down from Suzhou to Guangzhou to attend the world-famous and very lucrative Canton Fair.

His first encounter with security precautions and the lazy attitude of administrators was at the Wuxi airport, where the check-in attendant discovered one letter misspelled on his plane ticket. Despite the passport number on the ticket matching that in his passport, the attendant would not issue him a boarding pass. Arguments with security and with airline management got him nowhere. He missed the flight.

Eventually, the party arrived in Guangzhou to have the Chinese accompanying him denied entry to the Trade Show. “They need to show their passports,” Security said blankly. Orders had come down from the Ministry of Defense. This was no drill, either. So, not just my friend’s Chinese staff and associates were unable to get into the Show, but neither were thousands of other irate Chinese who had traveled to the Show to wheel and deal. My friend tried to incite a riot by arguing in public with Security that the Chinese government itself Chinese people were not deemed worthy enough to enter the Trade Show; only the foreigners, which, of course, was wholly unfair. He told me the crowd’s righteous indignation got them nowhere. Eventually, he relented, and chose to sit out the Exhibition.

Of course, the Chinese government in the run-up to the Big-O wants no slip-ups. They’d rather see the GDP dip a bit over the next months than to have another attempt at Separatization [sic]. Witness the new visa policies that make it very very difficult for travelers – on business or not – to receive multiple-entry visas. Even out of Hong Kong. Businessmen that typically travel to the Mainland through Hong Kong are no longer able to gain their visas to China as easily as they had been in the past. One businessman who had recently been in China told me the office was even closed when he had gone to renew his visa – a sort of impromptu bank holiday.

And further abroad: a British friend told me his girlfriend in London was one of the few lucky applicants to receive a visa to China, to travel here in May. People had been waiting in the line for five hours before the application window opened. The girlfriend had broken down in tears in front of officials and was able to convince embassy administrators she was not a terrorist. I know of other westerners who have put their holiday plans for China on hold for after the Olympics. I guess they figure they have better things to do than jump government sponsored hurdles.