Guofu Liu has written a concise and readable book on China's immigration law and policy. Strictly speaking, there is very little law in this emerging field in China, and what Liu has succinctly introduced is a hodgepodge of diverse, conflicting and little-known temporary rules and ad hoc measures that have emerged from different levels of the executive government. The law-making bodies and the judiciary are rarely involved and the whole field is managed through administrative discretion.
The book has an informative introduction which traces the historical development of the China's immigration law. Following the introduction, the book discusses the substantive issues relating to the procedures and requirements for visa applications, for short- or long-term residence applications and for work permit applications. The book also offers a useful appendix which provides interesting information on matters relating to cross-border marriage, adoption, and registration of birth or death.
The book covers major ground on China's immigration law and policy and, based on the detailed description, one can discern some interesting insights. While China welcomes foreign visitors and investors, there is deeply felt suspicion of foreigners and, correspondingly, a rigid system in place to monitor the daily life of foreigners. There are also numerous and significant restrictions on specific issues. First of all, there is nationality-based restriction. Since 2004, citizens from certain Middle East countries such as Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq and Turkey are subject to stricter visa requirements. There is also geography-based restriction; for example, visits to areas such as Tibet are tightly controlled and resident foreign correspondents are limited to designated cities only. There is finally profession-based restriction, and the best example is that China strictly controls foreigners' access to the labour market in the broadly defined cultural sector.
Although a significant part of the book resembles tedious guides for visa applications, the book does go beyond describing those meticulous and plainly dull immigration rules and offers interesting figures and information. For example, the top ten countries that send visitors to China are mostly Asian (the only two exceptions are Russia and the US); more than 60 per cent of visitors come to China for meetings and business; there are a few thousand Green Card holders who take permanent residence in China and the number of applicants remains small; a Chinese citizen cannot abandon his or her Chinese citizenship without the approval of the Chinese authority; there were 90,000 foreign workers in China in 2003 and 80 per cent of them worked in foreign enterprises; and residents from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are given preferential treatment in some aspects (such as business opportunities) but discriminatory treatment in others (such as the lack of consular protection when in police custody).
The book also touches on several controversial issues that have bearing on China's foreign policies, such as African traders who have clustered in a certain part of Guangzhou and are developing a community of their own, and China's dismal handling of the North Korean asylum seekers in the border provinces. But the author could have offered more in-depth analysis of these issues which have been widely discussed in China and elsewhere. The book, for example, does not discuss the discriminatory policies, as often alleged, against African traders, whom are often given a short-term visa only for their stay and are required to return to their countries of origin to renew their visa. The policy not only disrupts the business of those traders, but also reinforces the popular contempt against Africans and implicitly tells African traders to stay away from China. On China's infamous policy on North Korean asylum seekers, which is sharply criticized in China's cyberspace, the author largely restates the official policy of treating the North Koreans as illegal economic immigrants and merely adds that China “has been less forthcoming in accommodating demands from the international community for better humanitarian treatment of its North Korean asylum seekers for fear that, in so doing, it might anger its North Korean neighbour with whom it has a repatriation treaty” (p. 92). On this and many other issues, the author could have taken a more critical approach.
This is the first book on an important topic which reveals a prototype of China's immigration regime and provides useful guidance to readers. It is also a timely study. With further social and economic development, China is likely to attract more foreigners to China to visit, study, work or take residence. Chinese immigration law, like Chinese law in general, lags far behind Chinese social and economic development, and desperately needs to catch up. As the book illustrates, there are many restrictive, prohibitive and punitive rules but there are only limited legal remedies. Even in cases in which remedies are made available in formal rules, they are impossible to implement in informal practice – administrative expulsion of foreigners, taking just one extreme example, is judicially reviewable in law but not in practice. Immigration law is part of Chinese law and is thus constrained by the same social and political forces.
