I've moved to Kunming recently from another city in China, and had to go out to get a new tourist or business visa, but got refused in one place, Hong Kong, despite using a visa agency.

The reason, too many previous china visas in my passport.

Anyone encountered this problem?

Suggested solutions were:
get a new passport, that won't have any china visas or entry stamps;
go to another embassy or consulate or try another agency
get a social visit, i.e. be invited from a chinese person along with their id card, but can only get a 1 month visa this way, and have to enter via Shenzhen;

get a business visa, but need a letter of invitation, an official registration and license

Any suggestions? Don't want to apply to be a student.

Also, I met some other foreigners in similar situation, some had to supply bank account details to show independent income, and provide details about recent employment.

You'll get the longest-term visa if you go home. Ten years if you're American, one to two if you're from another Western country. The Hong Kong visa office has been doing this for a while. Basically, the government figured out the whole Hong Kong visa run thing and wants to dial it down a bit.

That's right go home and get a 10 year visa because of course these are easy to get and given out freely to anyone who asks for one.

I'd contact one of the business councils in China and see if you can apply for a business visa through them. The Sino British Council in Wuhan does this for Brits and the China Zimbabwe business council in Beijing does it for Rhodies.

Also, if you do another visa run don't use an agent, do it yourself. These agents swing in and out of favour with the people in the consulate. Best just do it yourself.

thmoasthomas, how many visa did u have in ur passport? Im currently in hk hoping for a tourist visa.

30 pages of china visas and stamps

30 is a lot! i have maybe 10. im screwed if i dont get it.

What visas are those 30 pages? If they are tourist visas, it would make them suspect that you don't really go there for tourism.

And for business visa, you will now need more or less legitimate business to invite or send you.

my last two visa were 6 month student visas. but the school messed up, the visas didnt overlap, so theres a week long gap where i was illegal. i didnt notice until they pointed it out in the agency here today. so they said i might be denied.

only if somebody notices the week long gap

remember there are hundreds of applications.

Yeah I got rejected in exactly the same way four years ago. I thought I was screwed literally but I still had five days left on my old student visa so I re entered the country and got back to the school and they gave me a new visa just in time.

The only other way I can think of is to use your second passport if you have one. As dual citizenship isn't recognozed under Chinese law every time you change your passport and re enter the country you are treated as a separate legal entity.

In other words you can stay in China a few years leave then change passports and re enter so they will treat you as if you were never here.

The downside is that you musr register with the police again, pay the student registration fees again the one off fees I talking about.

If you are married you can't extend or renew your visa using your marriage license until you change passports back the same applies for trying to change over student visas between passports it's a no goer.