I’m not Chinese but I lived in China for 8 years and travelled abroad with Chinese nationals both for work and leisure. There was no requirement for them to have an exit visa.
In terms of travel restrictions and freedom, I think the issue is more with travel within China and to Taiwan and Hong Kong. These will involve showing your Chinese ID card (your ID card is checked even for taking intercity trains) and for sure this process is different if you’re a resident of Beijing going to a resort town for a holiday versus someone from rural China going to Beijing during a time that is not a national holiday.
Let alone if you have a red flag against you for whatever reason.
Don’t get me wrong: my personal experience was travelling round China was a lot easier than the US; better infrastructure and quicker security checks. But I was an expat travelling with Shanghai residents.
Yes I was about to say this. Here in the UK, if you’re flying to a country that requires a visa then checking whether you have that visa is part of the check-in process for the flight; you will not be permitted to fly without a valid visa.
The difference with China of course is that more places will require a visa.
This book by Theroux is an enjoyable read. But you still need a visa to visit China (for Canadians). China claims they mirror the policy that the alternate country has regarding Chinese. When I visited, I felt very free and found most Chinese particularly polite and accommodating to my stumbling efforts to speak Mandarin (and sometimes eager to practice English). The relations between our countries has become strained in recent times but there are oodles of Chinese students who study abroad.
Mijin, I think you misread my point. Let me clarify, there is no such thing as an “exit visa” from China. There are exit controls where it is verified that Chinese citizens have a valid visa to the country that they are going to.
But I guarantee you, that a Chinese citizen attempting to fly to a different country without a valid visa will not be allowed by the Chinese border control to let them on a plane.
IIRC, airlines check because not only do they have to take a passenger back to whence they came if not allowed to enter a country, I also believe that there is a $10,000 fine involved. Regardless, airlines are very careful to check the passport, ticket and visa at check-in. That said, Chinese border control also do their own check for passengers leaving for an international flight. I know this from personal experience with a Shanghaiese wife and other Chinese national colleagues.
I am out of date regarding Tibetans and Uighurs. The key point being whether they had the taint of indulging in anti-government activities, or linked to relatives or others that were tainted.
I don’t know that this Uighur debacle was a visa issue per se (I don’t believe so), but I read about it in my alumni newsletter long before I read the linked article.
A number of countries do that - particularly up-and-coming countries who feel insulted that their citizens get the third degree from Canada. IIRC this was the case for Canadians going to Brazil or Argentina a few years ago when I was considering going there.
The Chinese visa process was different from some others and interesting back then. Send our passports to an agency who takes them physically to the CHinese embassy along with the application and the fee. ($60 if I recall). You get a nice big full page sticker. The visa application seemed to be more focussed on whether your were an employee of the Canadian government or a news media organization. (We weren’t) A minor hassle.
($60 was not out of line. That’s what it was for Turkiye back then, although that you could get at Turkish customs entry. Ditto India, but you had to apply online and get confirmation before embarking. I think Brazil at the time was the same - it reflected what Canada charged their citizens.)
That was a private broker business for those who didn’t live near a Chinese embassy or were too busy to go. You could always go in person and save the $60.
Actually that was responding to the exit visa concept that Jegpeg brought up.
I am not surprised because, as I say, I think that’s true of anywhere.
I will be flying to China soon, but it’s looking like I may not be able to get a visa in time*. If I were to show up at London Heathrow with my plane ticket and passport, but no visa, they will not check me in.
I seem to recall years ago that they would sometimes just ask if you had a sufficient visa for the destination, but now they always look for themselves.
* If anyone’s interested why, I discovered that flying from UK to China requires two adjacent blank passport pages. So unfortunately I am forced to renew my passport, and the timing is tight.
To be specific, that is an airline check. Airlines are responsible for your return flight and get fined if they let you on without a proper visa.
In China, both the airlines and border control check your visa status.
In China, at least the Canadian embassy had staff personally checking passengers. There were enough that had some kind of fake passport/visa to get through border control, but then would destroy all documentation evidence and show it in Canada claim refugee status.