Apart from marriage, there is a way to apply for the Green Card if you are a Deputy GM or above level in an "approved" company in China for (I think 4 years).
My old GM got a green Card like that. The "Green Card" is actually a 5 year residence permit in your passport and a Chinese Style ID card that says Premanent Residence Permit (Yes it was spelled wrong,,maybe they have corrected that by now).
The only trick to getting this was that the company had to be in a special class of companies, ie High tech or Export company, with all the certificates.
When our ex GM went to get his PR there was one other westerner and about 60 Kunming dialect speaking middle aged people who had lived in Kunming for all their lives but had never been able to get Chinese citizenship as their parents were Chinese refugees from Vietnam.
If you are a foreigner who was born Chinese or have Chinese ancestry then there is another PR class for you to apply for. This is much easier to get.
Unless they change the rules for PR I doubt many non Chinese born people (or those not married to Chinese) will get it, its mainly a way for the Chinese government to allow non citizen Chinese stay in China.
On the so called Chinese "Green" card. It is a 10 year residence card. There are, I believe, 6 different categories or ways to get one under the rules. The PSB on Beijing Lu has a department that does this and you need permission to go upstairs to see them. These rules are interpretable and are still evolving to some extent. All of the applications once approved by Yunnan for Yunnan must go to Beijing for review and approval.
If you have made a great contribution to China. If you have made over a one million USD investment or more. If you are overseas Chinese returning to China to take care of family is another.
The one "rumor" I cannot pin down yet, is the one about if you have lived in China as a legal resident for 10 years or more you can get a 10 year residence card under perhaps a different procedure.
Wait people!!!!!!
Let's not get off topic here( by that I mean just getting the criminal record). As HFCAMPO said, it's the green booklet not the other things some of you are talking about. When you get married to a Chinese national you get a 1 year 'resident visa', that's it. As I said in my first post, after 5 years, you can apply for the 'green booklet' which is a 5 year 'resident visa'. It's not a 'Green Card'. The 'Green Card' or 'permanent resident visa' is given to people that have a lot of money and invest in China (e.g. Warren buffet his wife is Chinese by the way, Bill gates, etc.) or when are of a high status like (Da shan, etc.) Read this:
www.thebeijinger.com/[...]
@HFCAMPO did you get the green booklet and if not why? Just curious.
Sorry, these terminologies of what something called here, by whom and when. confuse some of us from time to time. I used to have a "green book" that was my one year residence certificate or permit. I was not a spouse or married to a Chinese person. There actually is no "green" card in China anyway. Sorry off topic again.
This is what the 'green card' looks like:
images.search.yahoo.com/[...]
"Shanghai expat Sam Flemming, CEO of an internet consulting firm here in China, recently became the first person we knew to get a green card! While the China "green ..."
The 'green card' was create in 2004:
images.search.yahoo.com/[...]
Now that that's out of the way. Has anyone gotten a copy of their 'criminal record' for the purpose of fulfilling one of the requirements to get the 'resident visa' (green book)?
you need to go to the webpage of your local police (in your home country) order your criminal record,,if you have any crimes registered then I would stop the procedure at that time.
If you have a clean record then get the record legalized at your department of Foreign Affairs (not sure the departments name in the USA) then take this to the Chinese embassy to be legalized, you can then show the cops in Kunming you are a good citizen.
If you have a copy of your criminal record here then you might try to see if the Embassy will legalize it before asking the Chinese Dept of Foreign affairs to legalize it, but I have only done this overseas so not sure if it works in China. Otherwise order the record on line and get friends inthe States to do the rest of the work,
Yuantongsi
(717 posts) •