Can Chinese students study abroad?
Can families take vacations in Europe or the US?
Is it easy to maintain a home in China and another country? For example, a Chinese businessman that works in London, and still comes home to see family.
I asked about things US and European citizens take for granted. How much different is it in China?
Generally Chinese people can travel wherever they want, but they need to get a visa for most places.
Owning real estate in other countries is very popular (for those who can afford it), in part as a hedge against potential problems in the Chinese financial system.
Tons of Chinese students study abroad. I have hosted many Chinese exchange students that are high school age. They were all from wealthy families, so I’m not sure how accessible to the middle class that is. They were definitely slumming it with me compared to their usual lifestyles.
I work with several Chinese citizens, and they do travel. It is a little more complicated. For example, we are in the US. One coworker had a conference in Canada this summer. But he could not re-enter the US without first flying back to China, getting a new visa, and flying back to the US. I’m not sure if this is a requirement on the US or China side. I think he is on a H1-B here.
There was a news item (before COVID) about the government using their social scoring system to identify troublemakers, and one of the results would be a no-travel ban (even internally). Presumably that could affect one’s ability to get a passport etc.
One of the complaints about high real estate prices in Vancouver is the number of Chinese nationals buying up real estate - as Hogarth mentions, a hedge against issues with the Chinese financial system.
Also reported as an issue in San Francisco. So much so that there has been talk of imposing a tax on unoccupied dwellings as a way to either discourage this practice, or to gain money for the city (to spend housing the homeless, for example). So far, I believe it’s just talk.
China is more free than I realized. Thank you for your answers.
A lot different from the Red China era.
It isn’t totally free. Tourists can only travel abroad as part of a package tour what I am not sure about is how much freedom people have while on the package, I know they must stay at hotels booked as part of the package but I don’t know if they are able to do activities that are not part of the tour.
A Chinese citizen needs a exit visa to travel abroad, (permission from Chinese government) but I do not know how easy they are to obtain (i.e. whether anyone with the money can travel abroad or only those the government are convinced will not portray China (or the Chinese authorities) in a bad light.
I don’t think this is true anymore. It might have been true in the 80s or 90s, but now Chinese people can travel independently if they want. Here’s a recent article that mentions it: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/15/chinese-tourists-are-traveling-again-opt-for-domestic-remote-travel-.html
Prior to the pandemic, the majority (55%) of Chinese tourists opted to book their overseas travel through group tour operators, even as acceptance of independent travel has grown. That trend is unlikely to go away anytime soon, said Shi — even if the types of services they’re looking for have slightly shifted.
A good book is Riding the Iron Rooster by Paul Theroux. When China first opened up, he managed to “become separated” from his minder, and could freely wander all over China riding the trains.
We visited there in 201 and only Tibet (recently having had riots) required foreigners to obtain special travel permets. the rest was up to us, and we often went all over the cities without guides. Most humerous were the guys in dark suits trying to persuade us to jump the line to visit Mao, but we demurred and joined the line like regulars. There was even a youth hostel in the old part of Beijing full of foreign backpackers - we caught one of their bus trips to the Great Wall.
Also the middle schoolers who accosted us in the main shopping street in Shanghai. Their school assignment was to find a foreigner and have an English conversation. I have to say, their English was better than the fellow at work who’d been in Canada from Hong Kong for 30 years. But that this was their assignment gives you an idea how common foreign travellers were in Shanghai. I do wonder if the fellow in a business suit who started a conversation with us on the MagLev when we arrived was police trying to see why were were visiting, or just friendly.
There is still an extensive exit control list in China, though it’s not as visible as it used to be (in 1998 the official was going through something the size of a dozen old fashioned phone books)
Also denial of passports without a clear reason is still a thing.
Unless things have changed in the last few years.
But yes, for probably 99% of Chinese citizens getting a visa is all you need to travel abroad, and if you’ve got enough money or connections in China to convince the (Western) countries you’re not a risk of overstaying, you’ll get it.
I know the Chinese are proud of how advanced their civilization was 2000 years ago, but maglevs in 201?
I loved that book when I read it many years back. I’ll have to find it again for a re-read.
Package tours in my region used to be almost all Japanese people - particularly honeymooners. Now it’s all Chinese people.
A real issue is that a substantial percentage of them (particularly older people) can’t swim, and this has caused more than a few problems at beaches and on the Great Barrier Reef.
I have a co-worker who is a Chinese citizen but a permanent resident in Canada. She was grumbling a few weeks ago because she wants to take a trip back to Shanghai (not a problem) but the flights she looked at transferring through Taiwan were significantly cheaper; she had heard stories of Chinese citizens arriving at the airport and being prevented from boarding flights to Taiwan so she was stuck buying a more expensive flight.
Not quite the same, but I recall when a group of Chinese businessmen came to our head office in Toronto for training on the equipment we were selling them. They tended to all keep together at all times–we’d offer that they could go to this attraction, or that attraction, or some other attraction after hours, but they preferred to all be in a group, and decide what they would all do that evening.
A few of the things we suggested they might do is to visit the CN Tower, or maybe horse racing at Woodbine Racetrack, or take a day off to visit a museum (Toronto has an amazing world history museum and art gallery), or some other thing. Typical touristy things. Nope, they were all turned down for some reason by the group leader. No idea why, but a clue was revealed at dinner one night. One of the Chinese businessmen stepped out to have a cigarette. I, being a smoker at the time, offered to join him. He was happy for a companion, and outside, I asked him, “Why are you folks reluctant to be tourists while you’re here?” His response was, “The Party won’t let us. We are here on business, not to be tourists.”
Their only enjoyment of Toronto was to eat at Chinese restaurants, especially those that approximated the food they had at home. I love Chinese food, and learned a few things from them, like how there are often “secret” menus for those who can read Chinese. And some of the treats that our guests ordered off those—so tasty! I asked my smoking buddy how to order them again, and I’ve since been able to approximate his pronunciation to get the same in the time since. Though I do get laughed at, I get what I want most times.
Fun aside: my smoking buddy gifted me a pack of “Double Happiness” cigarettes. “See here,” he said, pointing to a Chinese character on the pack, “this character means ‘double’, and this other character means ‘happiness’. Here, this pack is for you.”
In return, I gave him a pack of “Black Cat Number Seven” cigarettes, which is what I smoked at the time. These pictured a black cat above the words “Number 7,” hence “Black Cat Number Sevens,” as I’d ask for at the corner store. He was delighted, and said, “Well, I can read English, and ‘Number 7’ is easy, but I love the black cat picture and how it adds to the name!”
Yes, that was back when travel “permets” were required. For some reason spell-check no longer highlights words here, and even though I’ve lost some weight, I still have fat fingers.
2010 - Doh!
However, I will say China is an absolutely amazing country, and a week or two is not enough to even scratch the surface, compared to its sights we see on the internet. It’s a shame so little of its history and culture is taught in the west.
It’s a U.S. requirement. Generally for U.S. visa purposes, you can only apply in the country of your citizenship or the country where you reside. So if you’re Chinese and your visa is expired, you can’t just duck over to Canada or do it on a business trip in Europe without getting permission from the relevant U.S. Consulate, which isn’t a given, especially these days when consulates are still super backlogged from COVID.
Ok, let’s break this down.
Long gone are the days in the early 1980’s when it was really hard to leave China. All the scholars I knew as a Chinese student at University had left their families behind in China. For decades, if you had the money, were free from the taint of defrauding the government/indulging in anti-government activities, had the proper visa, then it was open borders.
My Chinese mother in law came about 2 weeks ago from Shanghai for a visit.
Does it matter if you’re, say, a Uighur or Tibetan? Would they get hassled more about where they’re travelling to?
To be fair, #2 applies pretty much everywhere. The only difference is that the airlines enforce this outbound passenger visa requirement in most western countries, as they will be on the hook for returning the traveller if they don’t have the necessary paperwork (And some countries, like the USA, have no problem seizing the aircraft if the airline is particularly habitually lax).