Foreigners feel the heat as China tightens controls ahead of Olympics
12/May/2008 Intellasia | The Australian
May 12, 2008 - 7:15:49 AM
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Business people in China, especially in Beijing where about 250,000 foreigners live, are facing ever tightening controls as the Olympic Games approach on August 8.
The protests surrounding the international torch relay, and the responding nationalist surge in China, have contributed to a more challenging environment for working and living there.
This starts with tougher conditions for obtaining and renewing visas. Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said this week: "We are more strict and more serious with the procedure" of issuing visas.
As the Olympics approach, "Peaceful Olympic Action" teams including police have begun sweeping through apartment compounds, knocking on the doors of foreigners' flats, asking about everyone who is staying there and checking residency permits and other documentation. Foreigners and migrant workers are increasingly stopped on the streets and asked to produce such documents.
Many meetings, concerts and other events involving foreigners are being scrapped by government order as the Games approach.
This week a massive international congress of the Dutch-based Institute of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, for which 6500 people had registered and which has been planned for three years, was suddenly cancelled by the Chinese authorities.
It was to have taken place in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, which borders Tibet, from July 15-23.
One evening last week, seven expatriate members of the Hash House Harriers running-and-drinking group ran a trail in Beijing laid out by flour. When they finished, they were hauled in for questioning by police who tested the flour, then released at 4am with a tough warning.
The Beijing Harriers' website now says: "All Hashers are reminded that in the run-up to the Olympic Games there is a likelihood of increased security measures.
"Given that Hashers can occasionally attract the attention of the authorities, we recommend that everyone ensure they are carrying adequate identification while hashing, such as photocopies of their passports, visas and residency permits." They usually run in shorts and T-shirts.
Professor Jiang Yong, director of the Centre for Economic Security Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International relations, wrote an article in the latest edition of Outlook, the weekly magazine published by state news agency Xinhua, warning against the negative impact of foreign groups in China.
He listed "bad behaviour" by foreign businesses in China, and said: "Due to the lack of effective restrictions and countermeasures, all sorts of overseas interest groups have become ever more deeply involved in the country's major affairs, with complicated implications."
Overseas investments and listings by Chinese corporations had diminished local control, he said, while inside China "some multinational companies have long ignored the lawful rights of Chinese labourers".
The Australia China Business Council this week informed its members: "Additional documentation is now needed to obtain visas for business and tourist travel to China.
"You will need to provide your original return air ticket (a one-way ticket will not suffice), a copy of your itinerary, and proof of your hotel reservations in China throughout your visit."
Business visa applications must now be accompanied by a letter from a municipal or provincial level Bureau of Commerce office, or Foreign Affairs office. The council says: "Your business associate in China, who is inviting you to visit, should obtain this letter on your behalf and forward it in support of your visa application." The embassy or consulate where the application is submitted will only accept the original version of such a letter. Multiple entry visas are no longer obtainable at all -- either in Australia or in Hong Kong, where many Australians doing regular business in China are also based. But such visas issued before April 15 remain valid.
The Chinese consulate in Sydney has advised the Business Council that all visa applications should be submitted at least one to two months before the planned departure date.
James Tien, chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board and of Hong Kong's Liberal Party, writes in The South China Morning Post that "the potential impact" of the severe new entry restrictions "is grave not only for our city and for Westerners doing business through Hong Kong but for the mainland as well".
People studying Chinese, working for non-government agencies, or running temporary business projects, have until now been able to renew their visas within China or, if necessary, have flown to Hong Kong to renew them and swiftly return. Now all are being told they must return instead to their home countries to obtain China visas, which mostly expire every 30 days.
Mr Tien said: "Business people from outside Hong Kong are being told to apply for visas in their home countries rather than Hong Kong, as well as being asked to supply proof of hotel bookings and return trips out of China. The mainland and Hong Kong governments risk alienating and driving away these investors. That risk is intensified by the failure to give any indication of when things might return to normal." He complains that the new rules have been "sprung on travellers without warning or explanation". Richard Vuylsteke, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong, said: "I can't begin to explain how serious this is going to be. A barrier like this is going to have a real ripple effect on business."
David Eimer writes in a column in the Post: "Long used to leading privileged lives on the mainland, foreigners have become the subject of distrust and suspicion. Millions of people believe the French supermarket chain is funding the Dalai Lama" and that foreign countries actively encouraged the torch relay protests.
"A security clampdown has seen the increasingly paranoid Beijing Government cancelling everything from music festivals to a long-planned carnival to showcase the European Union."
Rowan Callick, China Correspondent for the The Australian
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