@JanJal
If you or your partner are Chinese, I'm surprised they gave you this option as babies born in China to one or more Chinese parents are considered Chinese. Period.
But maybe you and yours are both non-Chinese??

@Ocean: No, my wife is Chinese national.

Basically I agree with your understanding as far as you put it.

Even if we would get birth certificate with foreign name, the kid would be Chinese by default.

However, China's nationality law states, that as soon as someone acquires a foreign citizenship, he will automatically lose Chinese citizenship - and I really mean automatically.

My understanding is that for example if our kid would later get foreign citizenship, he might still hold on to Chinese hukou and passport and keep collecting any Chinese "benefits", but in eyes of law (like if he had to go to court to prove it), he would be treated as non-Chinese.

Denouncing Chinese citizenship when you have another too, is in my opinion just paperwork to formalize something that legally already happened.

congrats JanJal

also congrats :o) busy but great time ahead.....

@JanJal
The head of the PSB in Kunming (albeit 2-3 years ago) said quite categorically to me that a child born in China to mixed parents is Chinese unless/until their nationality is formally renounced. Chinese law states you may only have one nationality. Other competing nationalities are simply not recognised.

My child is thus Chinese. He has a British passport but, whenever I've shown it to officials, they have reiterated that it's unrecognized unless/until my son's Chinese nationality has been renounced. This has also been confirmed by UK authorities. So unless you really know different (and I'd love for you to be right!)....

@Ocean:

I understand, and upon closer look of Nationality Law of the PRC, it goes like this:

"Article 9
Any Chinese national who has settled abroad and who has been naturalized as a foreign national or has acquired foreign nationality of his own free will shall automatically lose Chinese nationality."

(source: www.china.org.cn/english/LivinginChina/184710.htm)

Specifically:

"or has acquired foreign nationality of his own free wil"

Could interpret that children (especially infants) do not have free will and therefore this does not apply to them.

Also could argue on the complexity of the text's logic: "Anyone who has X and Y or B". I know how AND and OR operators would take precedence in programming languages, but no idea about standard English.

More generally speaking, PSB is a police organization, whose role should be to uphold the law, but they may not be experts on the law itself. That's the case especially in more developed countries of course, not necessarily so in China yet.

@JanJal
Thanks for that. It does suggest more wriggle-room than I thought. I suspect it's the "settling abroad" (PLUS this or that) which is the key thing but, as you say, it could be read in many ways. Appreciate you sharing the source (though I can't actually connect with the link you used? HTTP 404 Not Found?).

Having the same case as Ocean when it comes Nationality with my child. I was told even though we now have a UK passport for him, the child will be Chinese in China as the passports not recognised until we renounce his Chinese citizenship.
Not rushed to renounce citizenship yet as you can imagine it's a lot easier being Chinese in China ;o)