Ce n'est pas la vie: the easy life gets a little harder for foreigners in China
According to the New York Times and the AFP China has completely stopped issuing multiple entry visas, has complicated the visa application process and is even denying tourist visas to people from specific countries, namely western ones like France that have provoked the ire of Beijing over their sympathy for the Tibetan cause. In one case the owner of a popular French restaurant in Beijing was told his visa was denied simply because he is French. (And if it's the great little 'petit' place across from the French embassy that I think it is, that is a real shame. What other French restaurant is cosmopolitan enough to offer croquettes, spaghetti carbonara and fajitas all on the same menu?) In another case, a German citizen and French citizen planning a trip together were forced to cancel when the French citizen was denied a tourist visa. More distressingly, the requirement that foreigners obtain residence permits has been largely unenforced in previous years, but is now in full effect. Foreigners without permits could be forced to leave their often-established lives in China if documents cannot be obtained. With the current sentiment toward foreigners, some westerners don't have a chance. Apparently there is concern that foreigners supporting Tibeten independence will demonstrate during the Olympics, so China's plan is clear and very "Chinese government": we'll just lock them all out. Business and government officials who travel regularly to China are also shocked by the new rules, since every visit to the country now requires a wait for a single-entry visa.
Back in 2005 my friends and I used to sit around in Beijing and talk about what the government would do to meet all of the Olympic requirements in time for the Games. There we were still coughing up black phlegm, incapable of brushing our teeth with the water, unable to give the taxi drivers a hotel name in English and actually be understood, stuck in traffic jams every day and still trying desperately to find a stick of anti-perspirant somewhere in town. How would they do it? While I hoped at the time -- as I still do -- for a successful Olympic Games and good things for China, it just seemed that the way the Chinese government ran things was a recipe for disaster. We postulated that they would do it by force: take half or more of the cars off the roads to clean up the air, kick people out of the city. It turns out we weren't too far off the mark. Swaths of traditional housing areas were razed overnight to make way for new highways and facilities, migrants from rural areas were kicked back into the countryside, and now it seems that foreigners are getting the boot, too.
As in all countries, the government is not the people, but the world's opinion of a people is often based upon what their government does. Ask any American who's traveled since summer 2003. It's a true pity that the government is doing so much to shoot the Chinese people's image in the foot. They deserve much better.