Tag: Visas

Mainland Chinese Flocked to Hong Kong’s Top Talent Visa

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To some foreign expatriates, Hong Kong has lost its appeal as an international city and no longer feels like home since Beijing took a heavier hand in its governance. But for many former mainland Chinese like Angelina Wang, it has become a more attractive place to live and work. Ms. Wang, in her early 30s, was feeling stuck in her job at a state-owned finance company in Shenzhen, a mainland city just across the border, when she read about a Hong Kong visa for professional workers. She quickly applied. As…

China’s Travel Economy Is Slowly Coming Back. Here’s Where It Stands.

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Since China reopened its borders in 2023 after three years of Covid isolation, domestic travel has thrived and high-speed rail has grown increasingly popular. But international trips in and out of the country are lagging, and flight capacity is still just a third of prepandemic levels. The economic stakes are high. Before the pandemic, Chinese travelers were the world’s biggest spenders, accounting for 20 percent of global tourism spending, according to the United Nations World Tourism Organization. In the past year, the Chinese authorities have tried to spur more inbound…

Florida Law Chills Chinese Student Recruitment

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The panic among faculty at the University of Florida began this month once word started to spread: Do not make offers yet to graduate students from seven “countries of concern.” Among the seven was China, the largest source of international students at Florida, a major research university, particularly in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The guidance stemmed from a new law that Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, and state lawmakers said was designed to prevent the Chinese Communist Party from having influence at the state’s…

Can U.S.-China Student Exchanges Survive Geopolitics?

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On a cool Saturday morning, in a hotel basement in Beijing, throngs of young Chinese gathered to do what millions had done before them: dream of an American education. At a college fair organized by the United States Embassy, the students and their parents hovered over rows of booths advertising American universities. As a mascot of a bald eagle worked the crowd, they posed eagerly for photos. But beneath the festive atmosphere thrummed a note of anxiety. Did America still want Chinese students? And were Chinese students sure they wanted…

Growing Numbers of Chinese Migrants Cross U.S. Southern Border

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The surge of migrants entering the United States across the southern border increasingly includes people from a surprising place: China. Despite the distances involved and the difficulties of the journey, more than 24,000 Chinese citizens have been apprehended crossing into the United States from Mexico in the past year. That is more than in the preceding 10 years combined, according to government data. They typically fly into Ecuador, where they do not need a visa. Then, like hundreds of thousands of other migrants from Central and South America and more…

China Is Suffering a Brain Drain. The U.S. Isn’t Exploiting It.

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They went to the best universities in China and in the West. They lived middle-class lives in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and worked for technology companies at the center of China’s tech rivalry with the United States. Now they are living and working in North America, Europe, Japan, Australia — and just about any developed country. Chinese — from young people to entrepreneurs — are voting with their feet to escape political oppression, bleak economic prospects and often grueling work cultures. Increasingly, the exodus includes tech professionals and other well-educated…

Can a Police Officer Accused of Spying for China Ever Clear His Name?

Chin@Strategy

Now that he is no longer accused of being a secret agent for China, Baimadajie Angwang can start asking hard questions. The hardest: How could he — a naturalized U.S. citizen, New York City police officer and Marine Corps veteran — have been jailed for months over what he says were misunderstood phone calls and classified evidence that not even his lawyer could see in full? When federal authorities arrested Officer Angwang in September 2020, they accused him of reporting on other Tibetans to a handler at the Chinese consulate…

China to Drop Covid Quarantine for Incoming Travelers

Chin@Strategy

China on Monday announced that travelers from overseas would no longer be required to enter quarantine upon arrival, in one of the country’s most significant steps toward reopening since the coronavirus pandemic began. From Jan. 8, incoming travelers will be required to show only a negative polymerase chain reaction, or P.C.R., test within 48 hours before departure, China’s National Health Commission said. Limitations on the number of incoming flights will also be eased. The travel restrictions had isolated the world’s most populous country for nearly three years. Foreigners were essentially…

As China Doubles Down on Lockdowns, Some Chinese Seek an Exit

Chin@Strategy

Clara Xie had long wondered whether she might leave China one day. She chafed at the country’s censorship regime, and as a lesbian, she wanted to live in a country more accepting of same-sex relationships. Still, the idea felt distant — she was young, and didn’t even know which country she would choose. The coronavirus, and China’s stringent efforts to stop it, thrust the question to the front of her mind. Two years of travel restrictions have made it impossible for Ms. Xie, 25, to see her girlfriend, who lives…

U.S. and China Agree to Ease Restrictions on Journalists

Chin@Strategy

WASHINGTON — The United States and China announced an agreement on Tuesday to ease restrictions on foreign journalists operating in the two countries, tempering a diplomatic confrontation that led to the expulsion of some American reporters from China during the last year of the Trump administration. The deal was first reported by China Daily, a newspaper controlled by the Chinese government, and later confirmed by a statement issued from the State Department. Under the agreement, made public just a day after President Biden met with President Xi Jinping of China,…