As seen on Sinocism: Yesterday, Sina News reported that the PSB will crack down on dual citizenships, namely “people who obtain citizenship in another country but try to keep their Chinese citizenship and hukou.” However, this move is also likely to affect mixed-nationality families.

Though China doesn’t technically allow dual citizenships, the law hasn’t always been enforced. In 2010, I was shocked to learn during my student visa application that I still had a hukou in Chongqing – even though I’d grown up in Canada and was a Canadian citizen. I ended up having to travel to Chongqing to renounce my hukou in person.

Until now, the Chinese-born children of mixed families – where one parent holds a foreign passport and the other holds a Chinese passport – existed in a legal gray area. My colleague Jerry Chan, a longtime Beijinger and dad of two bi-national children, has written extensively about his family’s bureaucratic hassles on beijingkids. Click here and here for some background.

In the past, children with both a hukou and a foreign passport were issued a single entry and exit permit (旅行证, lvxing zhen) for travel. However, if China turns its attention to mixed families in this latest crackdown, these permits would likely be abolished, effectively forcing many parents to renounce their children’s Chinese citizenship.

Though there have been no official announcements specifically regarding mixed-nationality families, one family we know has reported recently being “reminded” by the PSB to deal with their child’s de facto dual citizenship sooner rather than later.

This is a developing story; check back for updates.

Photo: Tim Sackton (via Flickr)

We’ve gotten a few interesting responses in the comments section of my recent blog post about the bureaucratic mess that many dual-nationality, foreign/Chinese families are facing when it comes to ensuring that their children have the proper visa/residency status in China. Since then we also received a letter from another reader who is facing a similar situation and was kind enough to allow us to share – I’ve posted his letter and my response below (Disclaimer: I am most definitely not a legal expert and the viewpoints and suggestions I present are not necessarily consistent with actual policy so take them all with a grain of salt).

My company is talking about moving me back to the USA – perhaps as early as March.  My wife’s hukou is in a [city down south]  but outside of the city by several hours. Our two month old son holds a USA passport now because we thought that was easiest and best but he is not on my wifes Hukou.  His birth certificate was also issued in English as the hospital told us that was the correct thing to do if we want him to hold the USA passport.  We first started trying to get him a Chinese Visa so he could stay here but that was denied because we were told to renounce his Chinese citizenship first.  To do that we were told we needed to return to the location of my wife’s hukou and present all the paperwork and it might take about 9 months to complete.  At that time he would qualify for a visa based on my work visa.  We never started this process.

What I’m thinking now might be best is to get the one time exit/entry passbook so we can just get him to the USA.  I’m told this needs to be done in my wife’s hometown though, but just the same, at least we can get him out of the country with us.  While in the USA, we could then apply for him to receive a Chinese visa from the Chinese embassy in the USA before he returns next time.

Does this logic seem to hold up to your experiences and what you know?

And my response:
 

Sorry to hear about your troubles – I can of course relate – the visa issue is a real mess right now.

Unfortunately I don’t have any first-hand experience with what you’re facing since my wife has a Beijing hukou.

What I can say is that it does indeed seem that the process is more complicated for bi-national families where one spouse is from outside of Beijing vs families of Beijing hukou holders. Each municipality seems to have its own take on the rules and how (strictly) they are applied – chalk it up to "bureaucracy with Chinese characteristics." I hope that increasing media attention will improve this situation but for now I’m afraid this is what we all have to deal with.

Every family with a waidi spouse I’ve ever spoken with has reported similar experiences (i.e. having to go to the spouse’s hometown to get paperwork processed) so in these regards your situation is consistent with what I’ve seen. This is a big problem of China’s problematic hukou system and until some fundamental hukou reforms are enacted, I’m afraid I know of no way to get around this (e.g. having to go to your wife’s hometown).

Aside from the hassle of going back to your wife’s hometown, it does seem like the passbook route is the most expedient and relatively hassle-free of your options – If I were in your situation, it would be the one I’d go for. I imagine that once in the US you can get your son a family visa quite easily, but bear in mind that I’m not a legal expert in these matters so best to inquire directly with the Chinese embassy or consulate in the US about this.

You might also ask the PSB while you’re down there if they could simply issue your son a family visa there (do go prepared with all the proper documentation – i.e. birth certificate, marriage certificates, hukou, shenfenzheng, passport etc.), but again, I don’t know how they operate and they could very easily turn you down, but it’s probably worth a try. I’ve heard that this might be possible in Beijing for Beijing hukou holders but it all seems really subjective (even as far as which officer you’re dealing with) – hence the confusion of this entire situation.

… I’ve been getting conflicting info myself every time I call the Beijing PSB and it remains to be seen what we will have to do for our own son – my hope is that as suggested above, I can simply take him to the PSB here with the paperwork and get his family visa issued here, but if that fails, I will likely do the same as you’ve pointed out – take him out of the country with a passbook and get his visa issued in the US.
 

As always additional comments and experiences from other readers dealing with similar circumstances are most welcome.

Back in 2008, when my wife and I had our first-born, I blogged about the issue of my daughter’s nationality. As dual-nationality parents (my wife is Chinese with a Beijing hukou and I’m American), we were unsure as to what this meant for our newborn’s citizenship status.

To make a long story short: according to US and PRC law our daughter qualifies for citizenship for both countries (or more precisely, in the case of China, she is "automatically considered a citizen" since her mother is Chinese and she was born in China), so we went ahead and got my daughter her American passport and a shenfenzheng (身份证), a hukou (户口) and a Chinese passport to boot.

But when the occasion arose for our first trip with her back to the US, we were obliged to inquire with the PSB (a.k.a. the Chu Ru Jing 出入境 near Xiaojie Qiao near Andingmen) as to what documents she would use to exit and re-enter China. 

After some back and forth, we were issued a special passbook for exit and entry and told by a PSB officer that we could essentially wait for our daughter to turn 18 and let her choose her citizenship for herself. In the meantime we would have to apply for the special Exit and Entry permit each time we decided to take our daughter out of the country.

Although a bit of a hassle, we accepted this seemingly sensible arrangement and proceeded to travel several times with our daughter out of the country following this procedure. I must point out that this advice did not seem to be based on some sort of official policy – more of a "nudge-nudge-wink-wink" off-the-record piece of advice from a rather nice officer we consulted with.

Interestingly, other families we compared notes with (where one parent was from outside of Beijing) reported entirely different experiences from us. Most were refused any kind of help in Beijing and told that they would have to resolve the issue in the hometown of the Chinese parent. The result was usually a bureaucratic runaround in which the parents were obliged to renounce their child’s Chinese citizenship and then apply for a residence permit.

We presumed this exception was possible for us because my wife has the ever-important Beijing hukou – it seemed that whatever policy existed at that time was ambiguous at best, if not inconsistently applied in favor of Beijing hukou holders.

Recently we have discovered with our second child (born in 2012) that Beijing-hukou-holding parent or not, the policy has become simultaneously more stringent and even more ambiguous for families like ours.

The Global Times has an article describing this very conundrum for mixed nationality parents in Beijing:

Foreign-Chinese couples taking the plunge into parenthood in China often face trouble if they want to renounce their child’s Chinese citizenship in favor of adopting a foreign nationality. The process is particularly confusing because advice often differs between staff from hospitals, the police and foreign embassies in Beijing.

As with many families faced with this situation, there seems little choice for us but to renounce our son’s Chinese nationality. Unfortunately this is where things get painfully complicated:

Renunciation requires a child to have a hukou (household registration) from their Chinese parent’s hometown. This then needs to be taken to a public security bureau (PSB) branch in the Chinese parent’s hometown with other documents, including parents’ passports or ID card, marriage certificate if held and a signed declaration renouncing their child’s Chinese citizenship.

The GT article goes on to describe what an incredible hassle this has proven to be for families where one parent comes from outside of Beijing, but this doesn’t mean it’s a cakewalk for Beijing-hukou-holding parents either. A Beijinger friend of my wife’s who is currently faced with the same situation tells us this process could take up to a year of red tape and hoop-jumping and she speculates that there is currently some in-fighting going on between the PSB and the Foreign Ministry (外交部) in these regards – as is often the case, these bureaus are having what appears to be a turf war of authority and influence and the pawns (and losers) appear to be the families.

For our family there is an additional rub: Since my son is our second child, he doesn’t even qualify for a hukou (or shenfenzheng) because of China’s increasingly archaic one-child policy – this means that in essence he is not recognized by China as a citizen even though authorities insist he is by birth.

We decided to have our second child in the first place under the mistaken presumption that he would simply be an American citizen and we simply wouldn’t bother with any hukou registration (much less any citizenship renunciation)*, but now it seems the burden is on us to lift him out of this legal limbo. 

With no clear indication of any reform of this policy in sight, I am currently bracing for a barrage of bureaucratic BS in the coming months as I prepare to take my son and daughter for a visit to the US some time in 2013. With no hukou or shenfenzheng to show for my son, I have no idea what red tape horrors we will face when we instigate this process. One thing is certain, I can only assume the worst and am definitely dreading it, but visit our Stateside family we must.

This is not to say there were no bureaucratic hoops to jump through on the American side – I was obliged to produce documentation and a sworn affidavit to secure my son’s US citizenship – but at least the process was straightforward and timely. I only wish I could anticipate the same for straightening out things on the Chinese side.

More on this issue to come. If you have any insights or advice to share, please comment below and here.

*My company even called the PSB shortly after our son’s birth inquiring about getting him a visa under my own Z visa only to be curtly told by the operator that since his mother is Chinese, he is "automatically a Chinese citizen" (whether you choose it or not).