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Latest message from the Commissioner's Office of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in the Hong Kong S.A.R.:
Visa applicants are increasing in a large number and need longer waiting time in the visa office recently. If you don't reside or work in Hong Kong permanently, you are required to apply Chinese visa from the Embassy or Consulate-General of Peoples' Republic of China in your resident country. You are welcome to China for tourism, business, visit of the Olympic Games.
Richard Brubaker of All Roads Lead to China takes that to mean:
If you don’t reside or work in Hong Kong permanently, you are required to apply Chinese visa from the Embassy or Consulate-General of Peoples’ Republic of China in your resident country... i.e. Don’t come to HK looking for a visa to China unless you are a resident of HK
And here's the situation in Macau as told by one of Brubaker's readers:
I was in macau on Monday to get my work visa and there were LOADS of laowais there trying to get visa’s for china… the maximum they were giving were 7 days visas or you would have to go to Chinese embassy in your own country… and they had put up a notice saying that since yesterday , 15th april, even Z visa’s are stopped from macau and HK!!
and …
they rejected a few people even for Z visas right in front of me
No word yet on your regular travel agents in Hong Kong who normally get the processed somewhere in Guangdong. If you have just come back from a Hong Kong / Macau visa run, please get in touch with us at info AT shanghaiist DOT com to share with us your experiences.
Previously on Shanghaiist
Getting your F visa: Even magic won't work now!
The multiple-entry F visa goes on holiday for the Olympics
China tightening F visa applications?
Photo from Heidi D
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This visa situation is complicated,when you look at the past 3 weeks what happened regarding the visas, we have no idea about what will it be in 1 month from now...
Several companies able to take care of those visas application are liste on the www.nextstepdirectory.com, we will have to go through all of them, and see which one can help ...
Greg
I feel really bad for people needing visas these days.
I must be so frustrating. Erg, random bureaucracy.
Thanks for posting, Kenneth. I appreciate these updates.
Well... to be honest, many if not most other countries (definitely the USA to name one example) have similar restrictions on applying for a visa in one's country of residence.
Yes it sucks, but China is just conforming to the restrictions that those other countries impose on their own visa applicants.
Complaining laowai should rememeber that it's still a walk in the park compared to the hoops Chinese nationals go through when THEY have to apply for visas to most places.
I have to agree with the above comments regarding the general ease for us Laowai to get our visas extended or even to get a new one. Though it seems pretty difficult, we actually have it very easy.
As an example, my wife wanted to come to the states with me for a visit. We had to provide financial information, pictures, documents, and many other items. We had to pay a large fee for processing paperwork, and then hope she would get her visa. I felt bad for all the Chinese who had to wait for hours to be seen by a visa officer. Many of these people would be denied within minutes and for reasons that I will never understand.
I guess its time for all of us to just suck it up and come to terms with the tightening of restrictions and be glad we were able to have it so easy for so long.