Becoming a Chinese Citizen, nationality issues.

[Ah-Bin]

This is a strange topic, but has anyone heard of "Black Chinese" or "White Chinese", and if so what ethnic group are they classed as?

There must be some foreigners who have acquired PRC citizenship (not the "returning Chinese" type) bu the in the past, even though it is a really rare thing. I wonder if you become Chinese do you have to choose a minzu　民族　or do you just get an identity card with Han on it? I thought maybe westerners would have to become "eluosizu" 俄羅斯族 (Russians). But then, what about naturalised Congolese or Egyptians? The latter might become Huizu becuase they are Muslims.

If I was going to become Chinese and I could choose, I'd choose one of the really small ones to boost the numbers. Or I might choose 保安族 the baoan, so I could joke around with security guards when I showed them my ID card

[renzhe]

Is it actually possible at all for a foreigner to obtain Chinese citizenship?

I was under the impression that this was literally impossible.

[wushijiao]

That's a good question. But these types of people are very rare. Israel Epstein, for example, became a Chinese citizen. I have no idea what 族 it said on his hukou.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Epstein

[roddy]

The Nationality Law allows it - Article 7 - but you'd then need to go looking for a whole load of rules and regulations on how it is implemented to figure out what the actual process is. I suspect it is a very hazy field. Look at the kind of hoops you have to jump through to get one of those green card things. You can start with this form.

Articles 8 and 9, incidentally, are the ones that makes dual-citizenship impossible.

Edit: Found the answer, for Zhejiang at least - if you're not one of the 56 nationalities then your application for a 2G ID card will be "暂缓受理。" - which I think means "Go away and stop being awkward." That pretty much means that taking Chinese nationality would be if not impossible then pointless - you're not going to get very far without an ID card.

There's also a list of those who've adopted China as a homeland here, but none past the 1960s.

[Lu]

Koreans, Russians and Jews are existing ethnic groups in China, so most of that list won't have had that problem.

(Once read a story about a Chinese Jew from Kaifeng, who said he was pretty much the last Chinese Jew in China, so not sure if the ethnic group is still in use, but at least it was there at some point. The Jew from Kaifeng made it to Minzu Daxue (or what's that uni called again).)

[rob07]

From a description of a meeting between Rupert Murdoch and Zhu Rongji:

"After some minutes, Zhu leant across, put his hands on Murdoch's wrist and looked him in the eye.

'I see when you needed to expand your business interests in the United States, you decided to become a US citizen,' Zhu said in Mandarin. 'Maybe you should think of applying for Chinese citizenship to further your business interests in China.'

As the Vice Premier's words were translated into English, Murdoch visibly reeled back, blinked and started to splutter a reply, not knowing quite what to make of the proposition.

Zhu burst into laughter, adding in perfect English himself" 'Just joking, just joking!'."

[carlo]

Interesting links, Roddy

That pretty much means that taking Chinese nationality would be if not impossible then pointless - you're not going to get very far without an ID card.

Apparently it only means that you can't get a 2nd generation ID card. The same applies to people with strange characters in their names or home addresses (冷僻字). I assume you would already have a 1st generation card, and you would use it until further notice. If anything, the fact that the article does mention 'foreign and stateless persons who acquire Chinese nationality' may mean that there are some after all.

I also wonder what happens with people that are mixed - if your father is Han and your mum is Miao, for example, do you get to choose?

[zenflaver]

Why would a foreigner want to become chinese citizen? but if he does, he should belong to whaterver ethnicity he was before naturalizing into chinese. Guess china has to add more ethniciy choices to the ID?

[monto]

I also wonder what happens with people that are mixed - if your father is Han and your mum is Miao, for example, do you get to choose?

You make a choice before 18 between the two.

[Woodpecker]

Why would a foreigner want to become chinese citizen?

Why not? I can think of a some reasons why a foreigner would:

> To make it easier to get a job;

> Because they have married a Chinese citizen;

> Because they are going to be there for a long time.

[msittig]

Roddy's link: http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/39604011.html

SB才会加

Hehe.

[renzhe]

> To make it easier to get a job;

> Because they have married a Chinese citizen;

> Because they are going to be there for a long time.

...Because they want to join the PLA...

[ipsi()]

Possibly because they come from somewhere that's actually just worse than China, and Chinese citizenship would actually be an improvement over their current one? Not sure how common that is in reality though.

[here2learn]

I wish I remembered where I read this last year or the year before... an article about citizenship. I think it said there are only about 10 people who have TRUE real citizenship, and it's not like we're all thinking... they are not regular people like us, and I don't know if "regular people" get REAL citizenship... something about ...it's still a temporary one although it greatly lightens your visa load. Those dozen or so people were high up VIP's or something. Basically they can come and go as they please forever and live here (or not) forever and never have a hassle again. Apparently there is a lower level for the rest of us that would still require some checking in, and allow them to kick us out someday if they wanted to.

Sorry, I'll try to remember more.

[cdn_in_bj]

I wish I remembered where I read this last year or the year before... an article about citizenship. I think it said there are only about 10 people who have TRUE real citizenship, and it's not like we're all thinking... they are not regular people like us, and I don't know if "regular people" get REAL citizenship... something about ...it's still a temporary one although it greatly lightens your visa load. Those dozen or so people were high up VIP's or something. Basically they can come and go as they please forever and live here (or not) forever and never have a hassle again. Apparently there is a lower level for the rest of us that would still require some checking in, and allow them to kick us out someday if they wanted to.

This topic was discussed in the following thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/2-favourite-chinese-musician3377

[roddy]

The longer term options as far as I know are:

Citizenship. See above. Good luck with this one, we'll all be interested to hear how you get on . . .

Those 'green card' things that were flaunted about in the China Daily some years back. To get one of these you need to be heading up a company investing gazillions in China, or playing golf with the head of the provincial PSB.

Longer term resident permits. I've read a few times (presumably on here) about 2 or 3 year residence permits for people who had work contracts that long, or who were on degree courses. I think this depends on local policy, and I'm not sure how it ties in with the requirement that you leave the country once a year. If that even is a requirement and not something I made up.

Basically mere mortals need to accept they're going to be visiting the PSB at least once a year.

[carlo]

If it helps, I had a 3-year work visa until the day before yesterday, with no requirements to leave the country once a year (though I didn't have a chance to stay for 12 consecutive months).

The first thing that comes to mind about green cards is that when the new rules were announced there was a feature on TV about this American lady who had got her green card after living in Beijing.... for 50 years. It was all very upbeat, with comments like "now China is like the US, foreigners can get green cards." Right. With 50 years in the US you would be more 'American' than half of New York's population....

[imron]

If it helps, I had a 3-year work visa until the day before yesterday,

Out of curiosity, what do you have now?

[carlo]

Right now I'm applying for a new Z visa (new employer and new job description), expecting 1 year, will see how it turns out.

[rezaf]

I know that it's an awkward question and that it has been partially discussed before. I just want to add to my information. Hypothetically if one day I got married to my Chinese gf who can't abandon her parents in China, would it be possible for me to obtain Chinese citizenship? I know that they have the law but has it ever happened before?