You are playing semantics though. A person visits a country, a passport does not. If you apply for a US ESTA to visit as a UK citizen, they ask if you have ever been to Cube, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. It’s irrelevant that you entered Cuba on your RSA passport, if you lie (and they find out) you are banned.
@scudsucker Issue being that if the Chinese government finds out, which would not be very difficult once you’re being held incommunicado in a jail cell. Then under Chinese law you are still a Chinese citizen. And since China does not recognize dual nationality, the US or other governments don’t have their usual channels to help an American citizen in a Chinese jail.
It would be trivial. You’ve been outside of China for ex number of years, don’t have a valid visa to the US, yet you fly to the US multiple times per year as your final destination.
Help me understand because my understanding is that for any country, if you are a citizen of that country you cannot rely on your citizenship from another country for help. If I’m a citizen of France and Chad and I break a law in France, I’m not entitled to go to the Chadians for help.
Correct, but if you enter China using a Chinese passport you are declaring YOURSELF to be a Chinese citizen. You cannot then seek consular services. You cannot be a Chinese citizen and an American/Japanese/British/etc citizen. That’s Chinese law and guess what law applies in China.
And the Chinese know that you cannot travel to the US, never mind stay there for years, without at least a visa. And since the only passport you can have as a Chinese citizen is the Chinese passport, where is your US visa? The one you got in 1998 doesn’t count. Unless you’re flying in from somewhere where a Chinese person has
The Chinese can absolutely see from their own systems how long you’ve been out of the country and where you were headed when you last left, if you required a visa, and if so what kind of visa.
There is no “presumption of innocence” when the Chinese border control is questioning you. Heck there’s very little presumption of innocence as a practical when I’m (re)entering the US and I’ve been a naturalized citizen for 30 years. Maybe if I had the right complexion there would be.
If I was born in China but became a US citizen, I can enter China on my us passport + China visitor/business/student visa. Then I am a US citizen in China under Chinese law and entitled to consular representation. In theory.
But my understanding too is that if you are a citizen of X then X cannot deny you entry. (Except, for example, the USA requires you enter using your American passport).
The gotcha in the Chinese example is whether you have committed an act that effectively gives up your Chinese citizenship and failed to tell them, and then tried to enter the country under fraudulent circumstances. But then it’s a catch-22. Did you give up your citizenship, in which case you are a foreigner entering illegally and entitled to help from the second country’s consulate; or are they deeming you are still Chinese, and therefore you have their citizenship regardless what you did overseas?
Most likely it’s the third choice, you are acting evasively in such a way as to suggest you are attempting to commit espionage.