Journey to Hong Kong

If you plan to go to Shenzhen from Hong Kong, just get a Shenzhen visa at Lowu or Huanggang border. No need to apply for a China visa in advance. But this is the case only if you are a passport holder of certain countries, such as most of the EU countries, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. US citizens are not eligible for this Shenzhen visa, so are passport holders of the following countries: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Cameroon, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Syria, Sudan, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The Shenzhen Visa Office at Lowu is immediately upstairs after clearing the Hong Kong immigration and customs. It is open 9AM-10:30PM seven days a week and accepts RMB for payment only. The visa is a five-day visa and costs RMB160. If you are a UK passport holder, you will be charged a much higher fee at about RMB470.

A friend has just got a Shenzhen visa for RMB160 at Lowu border. According to him, the whole process took about half an hour. You will first get your queue number, and when it is your turn, you give your passport to the staff for checking, followed by making payment at another counter. You will then have to wait again for your turn  to collect your passport, this time with the visa.

It was a Sunday when my friend applied for the Shenzhen visa, and the visa office, he said, was surprisingly not crowded with foreign travelers, but with Filipino domestic helpers working in Hong Kong and hoping to spend their only free day in a week in Shenzhen.

Note that the Lok Ma Chau border (the one connected by MTR) has no Shenzhen visa service. You can only apply for a Shenzhen visa at Lowu border or Huanggang border.

Since there are queries about China visa, I have looked up the information on the respective websites of China Travel Services in Hong Kong and Macau. It is obvious that if you are not a Hong Kong or Macau resident and if you want to apply for a China visa in Hong Kong or Macau, it is impossible for you to be given a multiple entry China visa. You will be given the ordinary single entry or double entry visa only, which will entitle you to a 30-day stay each time.

For the information posted by the China Travel Services in Hong Kong, check out here.  Their information is dated 30 June, 2010. So it is pretty updated. And here is the information posted by the China Travel Services in Macau.

People from the following nationalities will have to pay a higher fee for a China visa: U.S.A.; Brazil; United Kingdom; Belarus; Panama; Ukraine; Uzbekistan; Kazakhstan; Armenia; Iran; Ecuador; Angola; Ethiopia; Congo; Gabon; Cameroon; Cote D’Ivoire; Macedonia; Bolivia; Venezuela; and Chile.

I think I will just update the latest scene regarding tourists getting a China visa in Hong Kong.

It was said that the regulations over getting a China visa in Hong Kong/Macau would be lax after the Beijing Olympics. The fact is that the strict regulations are still in force and will be in force in the foreseeable future. 

Here’s the latest situation I can brief you all about after making phone enquiry with the China Visa office of the China Travel Service (CTS) in Hong Kong. 

Suppose you are from India and want to travel to China via Hong Kong as a tourist. You must have an old China Visa in your passport before you can apply. What is more, you must show your return flight ticket and proof of your accommodation (such as hotel booking) in China for your application to be processed. “He or she can get only 1-15 day stay,” the CTS staff told me. 

So it is clear that all the restrictions enforced prior to the Olympics are here to stay. 

What is more, if you are not a Hong Kong resident (meaning that you don’t have a Hong Kong Identity Card), there is no way that you can apply for a multi-entry China (business) visa in Hong Kong. You can check out this information at CTS Hong Kong’s website.

For enquiries about China Visa, contact CTS Hong Kong

by telephone: (852) 2315 7188

by email: enquiry@ctshk.com

I think applying for a China Visa in Macau would be the same.

From reading reports, comments and experiences on this blog and others, it is obvious that Hong Kong and Macau are no longer havens to get a China visa – at least not until the Beijing Olympics is finished in October this year.

You must take note that if you are only given a 7-day China visa in Macau, as reported by many, once you are inside China and you want to renew the visa, it is most likely that you will have an extension of 7days only, based on the first issuance, and not more. So be prepared for it and think again when you want to get a China visa in Macau or Hong Kong.

It is ironic that while the Beijing Olympics is intended for an opportunity to welcome the world to China, visa regulations are being tightened up for security reasons and the outside world experiences only the unfriendliness and inconveniences.

Following the tightening up of China visa issues, the organizers of the Beijing Olympics issued a reminder called Legal Guide to foreigners on 2 June, saying that some groups of people are not welcome to China.

The Legal Guide targets at foreigners, but it is posted on the Chinese website of the Olympic organizers only, not on its English website. So how can the foreigners know?  Isn’t it strange??

According to the Legal Guide, entry will be denied to those:

1) having been expelled from China by the Chinese government;
2) regarded as likely to carry out terrorist and violent attacks and engage in subversive activities;
3) regarded as likely to engage in drug trafficking and prostitution;
4) with mental illness and contagious diseases such as sexually transmitted disease, leprosy and tuberculosis;
5)  who cannot afford their expenses during their stay in China;
6) regarded as likely to engage in other activities that threaten the national security and interests of China.

I have one big problem with this notice. How can China be so flagrantly discriminatory against people with mental illness and STD when the country has a large number of people with mental illness and STD, especially AIDS, who desperately need the society not to discriminate against them and need care?

You cannot rid the country of discrimination if the leadership/high ranking officials of the country are using the language of discrimination.

This is a first-hand report from the China Travel Service (CTS) agent in Macau, from a friend of mine. No guess. Real experience.
 
The restrictions imposed on Hong Kong are now applied to Macau as well. Like Hong Kong, 33 countries’ citizens are banned from applying for a China visa in Macau, unless they are working or living in the city: Afghanistan, Tunisia, Algeria, Bangladesh ,Congo, Egypt, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Indonesia, Iran, lraq,  Mali, Libya, South Africa, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan,  Malaysia, Philippines, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Nepal, Pakistan, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Turkey, Mauritania, Saudi Arab, Sierra Leone, Syria.

The ban is being vigorously implemented. A Nepalese trying to get a Visa in Macau had been going to the CTS for three days in a row, but each time, he told my friend, his application was turned down. There is no other alternative but he has to go back to his home country to apply for a China visa.

If your country is not on the list, do not assume that you can still get a 30-day or 60-day tourist visa. You will be given a 7-day visa only! And for this 7-day visa, you have to show the following:

1. financial statement
2. foreigners are required to show the hotel reservation during the period of travelling in China
3. a flight booking of leaving China is also necessary in order to prove their schedule of departure

You will get a small piece of paper with the above instructions (in the exact wording) when entering the Macau CTS office (the one in the city centre, not at the pier) for a China visa. So these requirements are “official”.

For item 1, you can choose to show cash equivalent to US$700, if you do not show your financial statement.

“I saw a European couple put down US$700, flight tickets and hotel coupon on the table, and the staff examined them. It is a serious business,” my friend reported.

For a 7-day visa, you pay 500MOP (Macau Pataca) if you want to get it the following day. Or you pay 210MOP for a normal service that requires 4 working days.

A Lebanese, in chatting with my friend, said he had business in Guangzhou, and could not extend his visa there. So he came to Macau to try his luck. He first went to the Commissioner’s Office of China’s Foreign Ministry in Macau, only to be told that “it is illegal to issue him a visa”. So he came to the CTS office and was given a 7-day visa, a visa that is far shorter than he wanted, but then it is still a visa.

It seems that it may be easier to get a China (tourist) visa through the CTS rather than through the government channel, and Hong Kong and Macau may no longer be the haven for China visas, at least not until the Olympics is over.  

Related:

Get a China visa in Macau

Get a China visa in Macau (part 2)